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Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
I Should Be Friends with That Woman
Well, I might be able to be friends with her when I’m done being mad. And envious. And disappointed. And full of regret. But I bet I’d really like her when I was done with all these reactions.
First, the back story.
I like to shop in antique stores, consignment stores, and second-hand stores with items that are too new to be antique, so basically they sell pre-owned (don't you love how “used cars” got upgraded a few years back?) items that are usually still in pretty good shape. I also pop in to my local Goodwill for an exciting hunt now and then.
But I’ve got very particular taste. The kind of taste that doesn’t surprise some people who think I’m high maintenance, but since I’m shopping for leftovers, I tend to think I’m pretty low maintenance. I’ll be completely satisfied with the things that I fall in love with. And I’m content to find nothing.
For our anniversary two years ago, my husband and I found some treasures. We were out and about on a little sojourn away from home, and I’d Googled the local antique stores, in case we had some time to browse. We hit pay dirt - the antique store was in the same strip mall as a gun shop – literally two store-fronts from the antique store’s door. You couldn’t find a happier married couple that day – He slowly browsing guns and knives and ammunition, She lost in aisle after aisle of porcelain, glass, dishware, and crystal. He joined me after he’d ogled some beautiful handguns and sheathed fixed blades, and together we strolled the antique aisle, stopping short in front of a set of exquisite serving pieces, in a creamy white with brown and lavender flower stems, raised little creamy white and pink flowers – there’s really no good way to describe it but let’s just say they’re elegant and meet my (low-maintenance) criteria for having a one-of-a-kind pattern and being in perfect condition. And we both liked them.
That began the occasional procurement of dessert dishes that might go with them – little elegant antique dishes with gold trim that would match but not overwhelm the serving platters. Over time, on various weekends when we decide to browse, we found ourselves looking for such dishes. We’ve found some exquisite ones, and we’ve bought far more than we technically need.
One neighborhood favorite was going out of business, and from them we hauled away the master treasure: 12 white dessert dishes with the slimmest rim of gold on the edge, and a set of six crystal dessert wine glasses with gold etching on the rim, and a fluted crystal wine carafe with – yes – gold etching details that looked like these things had been made for each other.
Together, we’ve created the most astonishing dessert set. Every piece is gorgeous, graceful yet not too feminine, and requires hand washing while holding one’s breath for the extra care required not to damage the gold rims or hand-painted designs.
We need just one more item to complete our assembly, and as yet I’ve not found it. I’ve looked and looked and started to wonder if what I want isn’t even possible. Antique gold flatware – not too heavy, not too tacky or fake looking, not art deco or anything modern – that would blend in with all the other pieces. Every time I head into a store, I check the silverware. And every time I’ve been disappointed.
Now, we come to the part of the story of the woman who is not my friend, but could be. Last week we were on vacation visiting family, and I stopped in my favorite second-hand/antique store – a store that not just sells items from my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, but a few years back sold actual items from my family, when my folks moved out of their raise-the-kids home into a retirement community. This place has GREAT stuff.
I took my son, who, last year, found a glass dolphin, not an antique in any way, but cut nicely, so he has great memories of the store and was excited to see what they might have this time. [Yes, I have the kind of kid you can take into an antique store and not fear he’ll break something. The kind of kid any low maintenance mom would have.]
This time, we strolled in, and I mentioned to my son, not believing it would matter, to be on the lookout for gold silverware. Having a goal sometimes makes being in crowded places easier to navigate. He set off to look for glass figurines, I paused in front of all the delicate sets of china, picking up tiny little hand-painted bowls seeking the Limoges signature underneath. The store was filled with great dish and glass sets, and, of course, lots of things that I can’t imagine anyone would want in their home, let alone think could be sold, but that’s another story.
My mind was captured by a tiny little bowl, small enough to be a finger bowl but nothing more – totally without function, unless you could use it to put your rings in – there was only one, so there was no real use as a fresh salt/pepper dish for a table – really, it seemed to exist only to prove that pretty little fragile things still exist. It made me happy to look at it. It made me consider buying it, especially when I realized it was only $8.00. The only thing that made me reconsider was that I’d have had to get it back home, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that was going to travel or ship well – the porcelain was thin and it barely weighed anything. Even if I could ship it and be confident it would arrive in one piece, the store doesn’t ship. This gorgeous little item with the exact kind of floral pattern I loved would have to remain in the store.
I continued to stroll the aisles, admiring and condemning objects as they met my eye, and even found a bear skin that I was simultaneously repulsed by and drawn to, and I called my son over to see it, since we’d had a bear sighting the prior week while traipsing along a mountain meadow trail. He came back to see it, then headed off again. He called me over to see a glass hummingbird on an amethyst stand, and a companion glass butterfly piece – both were well-crafted and attractive. But for the same reasons the little bowl would have to stay, this curio set would also have to remain. He was disappointed but he understood.
We both continued to stroll.
“Mama,” I heard him call a minute or so later. “I found your silverware!” I followed his excited voice, not sure what he’d found, and carefully planning how to tell him that whatever he’d found was unlikely to be what I was looking for. But it was exactly the right thing – a set of 58 pieces, in a silverware case, of lightweight, attractive, gold cutlery. Eight pieces of everything, plus a sugar spoon and serving pieces. For $30.00. I was intrigued; I was enamored. But my husband wasn’t with me, and there was still the shipping issue - I’d have to get it to a shipping place by 3 pm, that day (it was a Saturday, 1:20 pm and we were supposed to meet my Aunt and Uncle at 2 pm that day for an afternoon of coffee and conversation; the next day was Sunday and the following day we were leaving town before the stores opened). It just seemed like the timing was wrong.
We left the store with nothing. I dropped my son off with my folks, picked up my husband and headed out to visit my aunt and uncle. On the way, I told him about the items we’d seen. “You should have bought them,” he declared, with just the mildest scorn that I’d not instantly snapped up this treasure. “We could have shipped them, no problem.” He was utterly confident in his assessment of the “shippability” of the items. “Let’s go back,” he decried, and his tone was so sure, our plan so clear, we headed right back to the store to pick them up and declare mutual victory.
I headed exactly to the spot, weaving my way to where the silverware box was, only to find it was gone. I backtracked and looked at several other walkways, thinking perhaps I was mistaken in where I thought it was. Then I went up to the sales counter, and saw it – the closed silverware box was sitting on the counter top. And on top of it was the tiny little pretty but impractical porcelain dish. And in front of these was a woman. “Are you buying these?” I asked, in a smaller-than-usual voice. “Yes,” she beamed. She clearly understood the value of these items. She may even have understood that she’d scooped me out of their purchase. Perhaps she’d overheard my son and I enthusiastically extolling them just a mere 20 minutes before, when I was hemming and hawing about buying something before my husband had even seen it, buying something we couldn’t possible take back on the plane, since they don’t even allow plastic silverware on board, wondering if $30 was too much to spend and if we really needed 58 pieces when all I really wanted were 8 dessert forks, 8 dessert spoons, and that perfectly amazing little sugar spoon.
I, who usually have something I can say at any moment, was rendered speechless. She’d bested me. And even if she was spying on my find before I left the store, even if my excitement about the gold silverware sparked her to look at it for the first time after she’d passed by it, there was no explaining the combination of her buying gold cutlery AND the pretty little finger bowl. I hadn’t said a word about that little bowl. I’d kept my covetous thoughts about it to myself. I hadn’t even told my son how marvelous it was. I had stood in front of it, picked it up once or twice, sighed, sure, but put it down and walked away. Never once during my (subdued) outcry at her having taken the only two items in the universe that I wanted did she offer to allow me to buy them instead.
The store must have held 10,000 items. How could she have picked my two favorites?
Hmmmm. I’m back home now, our family vacation is over. I’ve had time to think and think and think about what happened. I regret my second thoughts, my lifetime of self-doubt that did what self-doubt will always do – cause you to act against your own instincts, which is never very helpful, and certainly won’t get you a completed dessert set. I don’t harbor any hard feelings for this woman, who in one brief span, picked up the best items a top-notch second-hand store had to offer. In fact, I wish her well. I hope she enjoys the things as much as I would have. I hope they fit in to her high maintenance sense of needing things to be just so. I hope her mate, if she has one, is as happy with the capture as she is.
And if I lived in that town, I’d want to get to know this woman; I could be friends with her. She has, after all, impeccable taste, and the courage to act more quickly on it. And, sorry to say, because if I’d been her instead of me at the sales counter that day, I wouldn’t give up my trove to someone who missed out by mere minutes either. We are meant for each other. She and I might enjoy other things that seem to be uncommon pleasures in a world of mass-production. And if she invited me over for coffee and dessert, I’d be able to experience the pleasure of using one of her (but could have been mine) lovely little gold folks and spoons. I’d put sugar in whatever she served, whether I wanted it sweetened or not, just for the chance to hold that perfect little sugar spoon. And I could see what kind of dishes she had, and whether they were as fabulous as the ones I’ve found so far. And we’d talk and talk and talk about our lives, which would no doubt have countless areas of overlap. We’d clearly become friends. With one limitation, perhaps: we could never go to second-hand stores together.
First, the back story.
I like to shop in antique stores, consignment stores, and second-hand stores with items that are too new to be antique, so basically they sell pre-owned (don't you love how “used cars” got upgraded a few years back?) items that are usually still in pretty good shape. I also pop in to my local Goodwill for an exciting hunt now and then.
But I’ve got very particular taste. The kind of taste that doesn’t surprise some people who think I’m high maintenance, but since I’m shopping for leftovers, I tend to think I’m pretty low maintenance. I’ll be completely satisfied with the things that I fall in love with. And I’m content to find nothing.
For our anniversary two years ago, my husband and I found some treasures. We were out and about on a little sojourn away from home, and I’d Googled the local antique stores, in case we had some time to browse. We hit pay dirt - the antique store was in the same strip mall as a gun shop – literally two store-fronts from the antique store’s door. You couldn’t find a happier married couple that day – He slowly browsing guns and knives and ammunition, She lost in aisle after aisle of porcelain, glass, dishware, and crystal. He joined me after he’d ogled some beautiful handguns and sheathed fixed blades, and together we strolled the antique aisle, stopping short in front of a set of exquisite serving pieces, in a creamy white with brown and lavender flower stems, raised little creamy white and pink flowers – there’s really no good way to describe it but let’s just say they’re elegant and meet my (low-maintenance) criteria for having a one-of-a-kind pattern and being in perfect condition. And we both liked them.
That began the occasional procurement of dessert dishes that might go with them – little elegant antique dishes with gold trim that would match but not overwhelm the serving platters. Over time, on various weekends when we decide to browse, we found ourselves looking for such dishes. We’ve found some exquisite ones, and we’ve bought far more than we technically need.
One neighborhood favorite was going out of business, and from them we hauled away the master treasure: 12 white dessert dishes with the slimmest rim of gold on the edge, and a set of six crystal dessert wine glasses with gold etching on the rim, and a fluted crystal wine carafe with – yes – gold etching details that looked like these things had been made for each other.
Together, we’ve created the most astonishing dessert set. Every piece is gorgeous, graceful yet not too feminine, and requires hand washing while holding one’s breath for the extra care required not to damage the gold rims or hand-painted designs.
We need just one more item to complete our assembly, and as yet I’ve not found it. I’ve looked and looked and started to wonder if what I want isn’t even possible. Antique gold flatware – not too heavy, not too tacky or fake looking, not art deco or anything modern – that would blend in with all the other pieces. Every time I head into a store, I check the silverware. And every time I’ve been disappointed.
Now, we come to the part of the story of the woman who is not my friend, but could be. Last week we were on vacation visiting family, and I stopped in my favorite second-hand/antique store – a store that not just sells items from my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, but a few years back sold actual items from my family, when my folks moved out of their raise-the-kids home into a retirement community. This place has GREAT stuff.
I took my son, who, last year, found a glass dolphin, not an antique in any way, but cut nicely, so he has great memories of the store and was excited to see what they might have this time. [Yes, I have the kind of kid you can take into an antique store and not fear he’ll break something. The kind of kid any low maintenance mom would have.]
This time, we strolled in, and I mentioned to my son, not believing it would matter, to be on the lookout for gold silverware. Having a goal sometimes makes being in crowded places easier to navigate. He set off to look for glass figurines, I paused in front of all the delicate sets of china, picking up tiny little hand-painted bowls seeking the Limoges signature underneath. The store was filled with great dish and glass sets, and, of course, lots of things that I can’t imagine anyone would want in their home, let alone think could be sold, but that’s another story.
My mind was captured by a tiny little bowl, small enough to be a finger bowl but nothing more – totally without function, unless you could use it to put your rings in – there was only one, so there was no real use as a fresh salt/pepper dish for a table – really, it seemed to exist only to prove that pretty little fragile things still exist. It made me happy to look at it. It made me consider buying it, especially when I realized it was only $8.00. The only thing that made me reconsider was that I’d have had to get it back home, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that was going to travel or ship well – the porcelain was thin and it barely weighed anything. Even if I could ship it and be confident it would arrive in one piece, the store doesn’t ship. This gorgeous little item with the exact kind of floral pattern I loved would have to remain in the store.
I continued to stroll the aisles, admiring and condemning objects as they met my eye, and even found a bear skin that I was simultaneously repulsed by and drawn to, and I called my son over to see it, since we’d had a bear sighting the prior week while traipsing along a mountain meadow trail. He came back to see it, then headed off again. He called me over to see a glass hummingbird on an amethyst stand, and a companion glass butterfly piece – both were well-crafted and attractive. But for the same reasons the little bowl would have to stay, this curio set would also have to remain. He was disappointed but he understood.
We both continued to stroll.
“Mama,” I heard him call a minute or so later. “I found your silverware!” I followed his excited voice, not sure what he’d found, and carefully planning how to tell him that whatever he’d found was unlikely to be what I was looking for. But it was exactly the right thing – a set of 58 pieces, in a silverware case, of lightweight, attractive, gold cutlery. Eight pieces of everything, plus a sugar spoon and serving pieces. For $30.00. I was intrigued; I was enamored. But my husband wasn’t with me, and there was still the shipping issue - I’d have to get it to a shipping place by 3 pm, that day (it was a Saturday, 1:20 pm and we were supposed to meet my Aunt and Uncle at 2 pm that day for an afternoon of coffee and conversation; the next day was Sunday and the following day we were leaving town before the stores opened). It just seemed like the timing was wrong.
We left the store with nothing. I dropped my son off with my folks, picked up my husband and headed out to visit my aunt and uncle. On the way, I told him about the items we’d seen. “You should have bought them,” he declared, with just the mildest scorn that I’d not instantly snapped up this treasure. “We could have shipped them, no problem.” He was utterly confident in his assessment of the “shippability” of the items. “Let’s go back,” he decried, and his tone was so sure, our plan so clear, we headed right back to the store to pick them up and declare mutual victory.
I headed exactly to the spot, weaving my way to where the silverware box was, only to find it was gone. I backtracked and looked at several other walkways, thinking perhaps I was mistaken in where I thought it was. Then I went up to the sales counter, and saw it – the closed silverware box was sitting on the counter top. And on top of it was the tiny little pretty but impractical porcelain dish. And in front of these was a woman. “Are you buying these?” I asked, in a smaller-than-usual voice. “Yes,” she beamed. She clearly understood the value of these items. She may even have understood that she’d scooped me out of their purchase. Perhaps she’d overheard my son and I enthusiastically extolling them just a mere 20 minutes before, when I was hemming and hawing about buying something before my husband had even seen it, buying something we couldn’t possible take back on the plane, since they don’t even allow plastic silverware on board, wondering if $30 was too much to spend and if we really needed 58 pieces when all I really wanted were 8 dessert forks, 8 dessert spoons, and that perfectly amazing little sugar spoon.
I, who usually have something I can say at any moment, was rendered speechless. She’d bested me. And even if she was spying on my find before I left the store, even if my excitement about the gold silverware sparked her to look at it for the first time after she’d passed by it, there was no explaining the combination of her buying gold cutlery AND the pretty little finger bowl. I hadn’t said a word about that little bowl. I’d kept my covetous thoughts about it to myself. I hadn’t even told my son how marvelous it was. I had stood in front of it, picked it up once or twice, sighed, sure, but put it down and walked away. Never once during my (subdued) outcry at her having taken the only two items in the universe that I wanted did she offer to allow me to buy them instead.
The store must have held 10,000 items. How could she have picked my two favorites?
Hmmmm. I’m back home now, our family vacation is over. I’ve had time to think and think and think about what happened. I regret my second thoughts, my lifetime of self-doubt that did what self-doubt will always do – cause you to act against your own instincts, which is never very helpful, and certainly won’t get you a completed dessert set. I don’t harbor any hard feelings for this woman, who in one brief span, picked up the best items a top-notch second-hand store had to offer. In fact, I wish her well. I hope she enjoys the things as much as I would have. I hope they fit in to her high maintenance sense of needing things to be just so. I hope her mate, if she has one, is as happy with the capture as she is.
And if I lived in that town, I’d want to get to know this woman; I could be friends with her. She has, after all, impeccable taste, and the courage to act more quickly on it. And, sorry to say, because if I’d been her instead of me at the sales counter that day, I wouldn’t give up my trove to someone who missed out by mere minutes either. We are meant for each other. She and I might enjoy other things that seem to be uncommon pleasures in a world of mass-production. And if she invited me over for coffee and dessert, I’d be able to experience the pleasure of using one of her (but could have been mine) lovely little gold folks and spoons. I’d put sugar in whatever she served, whether I wanted it sweetened or not, just for the chance to hold that perfect little sugar spoon. And I could see what kind of dishes she had, and whether they were as fabulous as the ones I’ve found so far. And we’d talk and talk and talk about our lives, which would no doubt have countless areas of overlap. We’d clearly become friends. With one limitation, perhaps: we could never go to second-hand stores together.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
I Wish I Had More to Say About That
Every now and then I encounter a situation that, while in it, I’m thinking of how I’m going to write about it. The incident – either what is happening to me, or what I’m seeing, or what I’m hearing or reading or learning - seems so unique, so interesting, so odd, or just so crazy, that I’m convinced it must be put to writing. There is gold in that moment, and all that’s left is for me to lightly polish the nugget. With the conviction that I have something funny or intriguing or worthwhile to add as literary sheen, I anticipate sense the shine I will create, and I pulsate with the knowledge that this will be a good one.
Yet when I get to computer, my enthusiasm fizzles as I face the blaring obviousness of the scenario, and I can’t imagine escaping the trite, surface realizations. I can’t say anything more, and this backs me up. There ought to be something more to say, to add, that would allow me (and my fantasy readers) to transcend the obvious, but I can’t reach it. Maybe it’s unreachable, or maybe my brain just stops sometimes.
For instance, I learned recently that a friend spent a short stint in her pre-professional life working in a Made-in-Texas type store, where, she grinned in the re-telling, they sold everything big, just like you’d expect. I understand a bit about these short stint jobs, the ones we cut our teeth on and prove our independence and start to pay our own bills, even if they do not permanently stay on our resume’s or CV’s. Taco Bell does not appear on to my CV, even though I spent much of a high school summer learning first-hand what it’s like to get small pinto-bean burns on my arms as I stirred huge vats of refried beans, and the blank stare of customers as I parroted, “Would you like some Cinnamon Crispies with that?” to people who clearly did not wish to add Cinnamon Crispies to their taco order. My short stint taught me two other lessons, in addition to learning what up-selling is and how to avoid it when I’m on the other side of the counter. First, I didn’t want to be like my manager, who slept in his car in the parking lot, and who saw this job as the end of what he was destined to accomplish. Second, I needed to find a professional outlet for my independent and creative sensibilities – my ideas of how to improve the way things were done were lost in that environment, or perhaps more than lost, they were loathed, and I wasn’t admired at all for my autonomous thinking.
My friend has her own memories of this phase of her work life. Mostly she recalls all the items that the store sold that were made out of Texas license plates or formed into the shape of Texas, which is exactly what all the Made-In-________ stores manage to sell: state-shaped cheese and pot-holders that if you weren’t in the state at the time you saw the item you might not recognize the state: the cheddar Wisconsin or the Christmas stocking shaped like California or the cornhusker red potholders shaped like Nebraska or the wooden plank to add a smoked flavor to grilled salmon in the shape of Washington state. Out of the stores, they look like misshapen amoebas, until your host or hostess reminds you of the geography they are supposed to represent (unless your item also has the state name printed largely across it – a dead give-away that lends definition to the otherwise unidentifiable form).
She also remembers a uniquely Texan item: a purse made from a cow testicle. And this is the moment when my mind left the experience of two friends sharing chuckles about early versions of ourselves, as I realized I had to write about this. My mind veered right off the conversation into flights of fancy. I was on fire with questions. I needed details. I asked her whatever came to mind. Later, I realized that I had even more questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back and ask them of her, so many of my queries remain unanswered. Was it wrinkled or had someone figured out how to smooth it out? Was it soft or hard? Who would buy such a thing? Was it supposed to be a gag gift or was it serious? Did she ever sell one? Did she ever have to touch one? Would the person who bought one know it was a cow testicle or was it sold under the pretense of something else (a generic “genuine 100% Texas leather” bag or a “Texan pouch”)? Was this destined to be the best-ever Texan bachelorette party gift? And, if so, what would the bridesmaids put inside? Confetti? Penis lollipops? Does she think they still sell them? Could I find a picture of one on the internet? Could I keep myself from Googling one?
We had loads we talked about that night other than this little interchange, but the cow testicle purse lodged itself in my brain and I found myself thinking about it from time to time, still wondering how to write about it. When I told my husband about it (one of the first things I related about my girls’ night out), his reaction was to correct the gender and anatomical inaccuracies inherent in “cow testicle”: the purse must have been made from a bull scrotum. And off on another flight of fancy I went, this one linguistic. What’s the plural of scrotum? Scrotums? Scrota? I realize only now that I’ve never thought of them as other than singular. And yes, testicles are inside, holding all the inside bits – if anything, they’re destined to become Rocky Mountain Oysters (how’s that for another wave of ookiness? Really, who are these people?). Testicles themselves could never be the thing destined to become a fashion accessary capable of holding lipstick, compacts, a wallet, cell phone, mints, condoms, a sheathed fix-blade knife or small handgun – the barest assembly of essentials for any respectable Texan woman that I suppose could easily fit into a “we grow-‘em-big-down-here” Texan bull’s scrotum. No Midwestern or East Coast bull scrotum could hold all that.
But try as I might, I can’t find a single thing to say about a cow testicle/bull scrotum purse. My thoughts about the purse go ‘round the same circular path of mere ordinary and predictable commentary, and I’m left with an idea that ought to have been worthy of writing about. Maybe it’s for the next person who dares to imagine a purse made from a bull scrotum to find the way to write about. I just can’t do it.
-----
Yet when I get to computer, my enthusiasm fizzles as I face the blaring obviousness of the scenario, and I can’t imagine escaping the trite, surface realizations. I can’t say anything more, and this backs me up. There ought to be something more to say, to add, that would allow me (and my fantasy readers) to transcend the obvious, but I can’t reach it. Maybe it’s unreachable, or maybe my brain just stops sometimes.
For instance, I learned recently that a friend spent a short stint in her pre-professional life working in a Made-in-Texas type store, where, she grinned in the re-telling, they sold everything big, just like you’d expect. I understand a bit about these short stint jobs, the ones we cut our teeth on and prove our independence and start to pay our own bills, even if they do not permanently stay on our resume’s or CV’s. Taco Bell does not appear on to my CV, even though I spent much of a high school summer learning first-hand what it’s like to get small pinto-bean burns on my arms as I stirred huge vats of refried beans, and the blank stare of customers as I parroted, “Would you like some Cinnamon Crispies with that?” to people who clearly did not wish to add Cinnamon Crispies to their taco order. My short stint taught me two other lessons, in addition to learning what up-selling is and how to avoid it when I’m on the other side of the counter. First, I didn’t want to be like my manager, who slept in his car in the parking lot, and who saw this job as the end of what he was destined to accomplish. Second, I needed to find a professional outlet for my independent and creative sensibilities – my ideas of how to improve the way things were done were lost in that environment, or perhaps more than lost, they were loathed, and I wasn’t admired at all for my autonomous thinking.
My friend has her own memories of this phase of her work life. Mostly she recalls all the items that the store sold that were made out of Texas license plates or formed into the shape of Texas, which is exactly what all the Made-In-________ stores manage to sell: state-shaped cheese and pot-holders that if you weren’t in the state at the time you saw the item you might not recognize the state: the cheddar Wisconsin or the Christmas stocking shaped like California or the cornhusker red potholders shaped like Nebraska or the wooden plank to add a smoked flavor to grilled salmon in the shape of Washington state. Out of the stores, they look like misshapen amoebas, until your host or hostess reminds you of the geography they are supposed to represent (unless your item also has the state name printed largely across it – a dead give-away that lends definition to the otherwise unidentifiable form).
She also remembers a uniquely Texan item: a purse made from a cow testicle. And this is the moment when my mind left the experience of two friends sharing chuckles about early versions of ourselves, as I realized I had to write about this. My mind veered right off the conversation into flights of fancy. I was on fire with questions. I needed details. I asked her whatever came to mind. Later, I realized that I had even more questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back and ask them of her, so many of my queries remain unanswered. Was it wrinkled or had someone figured out how to smooth it out? Was it soft or hard? Who would buy such a thing? Was it supposed to be a gag gift or was it serious? Did she ever sell one? Did she ever have to touch one? Would the person who bought one know it was a cow testicle or was it sold under the pretense of something else (a generic “genuine 100% Texas leather” bag or a “Texan pouch”)? Was this destined to be the best-ever Texan bachelorette party gift? And, if so, what would the bridesmaids put inside? Confetti? Penis lollipops? Does she think they still sell them? Could I find a picture of one on the internet? Could I keep myself from Googling one?
We had loads we talked about that night other than this little interchange, but the cow testicle purse lodged itself in my brain and I found myself thinking about it from time to time, still wondering how to write about it. When I told my husband about it (one of the first things I related about my girls’ night out), his reaction was to correct the gender and anatomical inaccuracies inherent in “cow testicle”: the purse must have been made from a bull scrotum. And off on another flight of fancy I went, this one linguistic. What’s the plural of scrotum? Scrotums? Scrota? I realize only now that I’ve never thought of them as other than singular. And yes, testicles are inside, holding all the inside bits – if anything, they’re destined to become Rocky Mountain Oysters (how’s that for another wave of ookiness? Really, who are these people?). Testicles themselves could never be the thing destined to become a fashion accessary capable of holding lipstick, compacts, a wallet, cell phone, mints, condoms, a sheathed fix-blade knife or small handgun – the barest assembly of essentials for any respectable Texan woman that I suppose could easily fit into a “we grow-‘em-big-down-here” Texan bull’s scrotum. No Midwestern or East Coast bull scrotum could hold all that.
But try as I might, I can’t find a single thing to say about a cow testicle/bull scrotum purse. My thoughts about the purse go ‘round the same circular path of mere ordinary and predictable commentary, and I’m left with an idea that ought to have been worthy of writing about. Maybe it’s for the next person who dares to imagine a purse made from a bull scrotum to find the way to write about. I just can’t do it.
-----
Thanks, S.S., for lending me this nugget. Look how far we've come!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Hot Flashes
A while back I was strolling through a community garden, and came across a blaze of color. First I registered the deep pink, almost with hints of red in it, then the shape. They looked like calla lilies (I don’t know tons of flowers, but calla lilies are so unique I can actually remember them). But I’d never seen a hot pink lily, fading ever so magically to ivory at what one grower calls the throat of the plant. I was in love, then I looked to the sign to find out the name: Hot Flashes.
I laughed and laughed and laughed. No dry, parched, colorless skin on these beauties. No widower’s hump or stoop in their stem. Just glowing pink and the tiniest striations of white, leading seductively to their yellow stamen. They were lush and vibrant and, if flowers could have an age, in their youthful splendor.
Something I apparently don’t share with them. Soon, oh so soon, I’ll have my first hot flash. My OB/GYN will be happy to learn of this. He’ll be the only one. He’s basically my age, and if I weren’t married and if my butcher and my 80+ acupuncturist weren’t already taken (these are my first alternates if I ever leave my husband, who completely understands why he’s in the running with our butcher, and may even harbor his own fantasies of leaving me for someone who invariably supplies the most amazing cuts of meat), I’d give this man a go. If he’s my age, his wife must be my age, so it’s probably hot flashes all around. But still.
Oh, was that an estrogen-deficient flight of fancy? I can’t recall.
I might need to plant some of these lilies next spring. And maybe intersperse them with some called, enticingly, Lipstick (slightly elongated, more red and burgundy with velvety petals), Purple Sensation, and maybe even some Blush Blend. Then it will be hot flashes inside and out, surrounded by the sensual feminine curves of every age that preceded them.
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Matinee
It’s summer: the time of baseball games, waterskiing, overnight camping, barbeques, boating and swimming and biking and . . . outdoor musicals. Brigadoon was on this year’s docket at our local theatre-in-the-forest. I’ve always like this story of a perfect place lost in the mists but for one day every hundred years. The promise of a community theater production in an outdoor setting, uncomfortably perched on wooden benches with (new this year) wooden backs, plaids and plaids and kilts and under-produced vocals was, well, almost like . . . being . . . in love.
I invited several families to join us. The one that did was the family of the girl my son had a crush on during the school year. The day promised an element of romance for my son, even though scaled back to 10-year-old romantic yearnings, which neither he nor his friend comprehend fully.
There are lovely bits and bawdy bits in this show, and my son laughed deeply at the sexual associations soaring just above his head. He’s just beginning to get the idea that something unique happens when you pair a (lusty) woman with a (love-lorn) man, sprinkle in a bit of roguish drinking, and move the whole thing to the mystical land behind the mists (or behind your parent’s bedroom door). He preened and pranced for his friend in a before-show hike, demonstrating his adventuresome spirit and skill at rock scrambling and his ability to beat her in a race back to the car. He was proving himself to her, not yet aware that his feats of bravery and skill weren't quite on her radar screen, and certainly not yet aware of the cache that awaits when a young woman does note this worthy young suitor's bravery and skill, and bestows her favor in return.
It was a matinee performance, perfect for families with kids, friends and family of the cast, and older adults. We sat in the second row. Behind an entire octogenarian first row. Old woman next to old woman next to . . . . and on and on until the one old man, then the old woman/old woman pattern repeated. Walkers, canes, silver, white and grey hair, wisps of auburn or deep russet hair combed and poofed over white, white scalps, scarves and floppy hats and one fedora (on the one old man), loud, very loud whispers about how to get back to the van . . . A group from a local retirement home that took it’s own mini-bus to the performance. These folks must have been the brightest and the best of the residents. They were mobile, alert, and dressed in their Sunday casual finery.
In our row, we were the older parents kept jauntily young by the shenanigans, friendship and courtship of our kids. I was in my Sunday casual outdoor attire -sleeveless shirt and zip-off hiking pants – surrounded by youthful gear - a backpack, snacks, water bottles, sunscreen and, yes, bug spray (toxic and natural, as I wasn’t sure which type the other family would want).
Several times during the performance I looked down the row in front and thought, this is where I’ll be sitting, not too long from now. In just a few decades, when the activity director posts the sign-up sheet for the outdoor musical matinee, I’ll be first on the list. I’ll be in that front row, tapping my feet, wearing my jaunty cape, with my too-dark tresses barely covering my aged scalp. I’ll be singing along, swaying my arthritic back to the most exciting field trip my senior center can arrange. I’ll wear layers and a big brimmed floppy hat to ward off the sun; perhaps I’ll even wear an attractive brooch. I’ll put on my finest for the chance to hear lyric versions of romantic love. I’ll remember the moments when I was like Fiona, holding out for the right love, and when I found my Tommy – the one who gave up everything to join me. Camelot, Brigadoon, Eden – I’ve tasted these mythic places on Earth, and have even broken out in song and dance. And when I’m an old lady in the front row at the summer outdoor matinee, I will savor these joys again.
And when the whole group returns to the home, well before dark, still within the early-bird dinner hours, I hope I’ll have enough energy to extend the day to dine with friends, hum tunes from the show, and talk about the youthful actors (to our group, anyone in the play will be youthful). If I get on a roll, I’ll sing a few Brigadoon verses with the ladies. Maybe I’ll even sidle up to the one old man for a duet. I’ll repeat the story of my college-era performance in a Gilbert and Sullivan show, brag about the busty-frocked, bawdy chorus wench I got to be (just like I couldn’t help tell this family, albeit a PG version boast because of the kids), despite swearing that I never want to be an old person who recycles the same worn stories over and over. Maybe I’ll even tell the story of how I used to take my son to plays and musicals and outdoor summer adventures, even once took him and a schoolgirl crush to see this very show, and how I hope those memories are alive in him somewhere, but who can understand the music these young people are listening to these days, anyway?
I invited several families to join us. The one that did was the family of the girl my son had a crush on during the school year. The day promised an element of romance for my son, even though scaled back to 10-year-old romantic yearnings, which neither he nor his friend comprehend fully.
There are lovely bits and bawdy bits in this show, and my son laughed deeply at the sexual associations soaring just above his head. He’s just beginning to get the idea that something unique happens when you pair a (lusty) woman with a (love-lorn) man, sprinkle in a bit of roguish drinking, and move the whole thing to the mystical land behind the mists (or behind your parent’s bedroom door). He preened and pranced for his friend in a before-show hike, demonstrating his adventuresome spirit and skill at rock scrambling and his ability to beat her in a race back to the car. He was proving himself to her, not yet aware that his feats of bravery and skill weren't quite on her radar screen, and certainly not yet aware of the cache that awaits when a young woman does note this worthy young suitor's bravery and skill, and bestows her favor in return.
It was a matinee performance, perfect for families with kids, friends and family of the cast, and older adults. We sat in the second row. Behind an entire octogenarian first row. Old woman next to old woman next to . . . . and on and on until the one old man, then the old woman/old woman pattern repeated. Walkers, canes, silver, white and grey hair, wisps of auburn or deep russet hair combed and poofed over white, white scalps, scarves and floppy hats and one fedora (on the one old man), loud, very loud whispers about how to get back to the van . . . A group from a local retirement home that took it’s own mini-bus to the performance. These folks must have been the brightest and the best of the residents. They were mobile, alert, and dressed in their Sunday casual finery.
In our row, we were the older parents kept jauntily young by the shenanigans, friendship and courtship of our kids. I was in my Sunday casual outdoor attire -sleeveless shirt and zip-off hiking pants – surrounded by youthful gear - a backpack, snacks, water bottles, sunscreen and, yes, bug spray (toxic and natural, as I wasn’t sure which type the other family would want).
Several times during the performance I looked down the row in front and thought, this is where I’ll be sitting, not too long from now. In just a few decades, when the activity director posts the sign-up sheet for the outdoor musical matinee, I’ll be first on the list. I’ll be in that front row, tapping my feet, wearing my jaunty cape, with my too-dark tresses barely covering my aged scalp. I’ll be singing along, swaying my arthritic back to the most exciting field trip my senior center can arrange. I’ll wear layers and a big brimmed floppy hat to ward off the sun; perhaps I’ll even wear an attractive brooch. I’ll put on my finest for the chance to hear lyric versions of romantic love. I’ll remember the moments when I was like Fiona, holding out for the right love, and when I found my Tommy – the one who gave up everything to join me. Camelot, Brigadoon, Eden – I’ve tasted these mythic places on Earth, and have even broken out in song and dance. And when I’m an old lady in the front row at the summer outdoor matinee, I will savor these joys again.
And when the whole group returns to the home, well before dark, still within the early-bird dinner hours, I hope I’ll have enough energy to extend the day to dine with friends, hum tunes from the show, and talk about the youthful actors (to our group, anyone in the play will be youthful). If I get on a roll, I’ll sing a few Brigadoon verses with the ladies. Maybe I’ll even sidle up to the one old man for a duet. I’ll repeat the story of my college-era performance in a Gilbert and Sullivan show, brag about the busty-frocked, bawdy chorus wench I got to be (just like I couldn’t help tell this family, albeit a PG version boast because of the kids), despite swearing that I never want to be an old person who recycles the same worn stories over and over. Maybe I’ll even tell the story of how I used to take my son to plays and musicals and outdoor summer adventures, even once took him and a schoolgirl crush to see this very show, and how I hope those memories are alive in him somewhere, but who can understand the music these young people are listening to these days, anyway?
Friday, August 5, 2011
Lancelot is Growing Up
At times, my 10-year-old seems quite grown up, with opinions and ideas about how the world works that are sophisticated and have an internal logic, even if they don’t always match facts that he hasn’t yet encountered about the world. At other times, he still responds as the young boy he is. He is both, simultaneously. Not for long, of course. The balance will shift and he will be more man than boy. But for today, he walks the tightrope of both worlds.
I
In a matter of just a few days, my son has grown taller, about a good inch, When I commented on it, showing him that now the top of his head is almost to my shoulder, he replied cheerfully, “So that’s why you look so small.”
He seems to like the idea of gaining on me. When all three of us were in the kitchen this morning, he told my husband how he thinks I’m getting smaller. Gleam in his eye.
I told him that soon he’ll be looking down on my pointy little head.
“You don’t have a pointy head,” he said, defending me against my own statement. “You have no idea what the top of my head looks like!” I replied, joking. “I will soon,” he proclaimed, half a dare, half not really believing it.
Much merriment, as three bodies swerved and collided in our too-small kitchen, hot cereal and coffee on one counter, camp lunch preparation plus breakfast on another, and dinner fixings edging close behind.
“When you’re looking down on me from up above,” I added, “be kind to me.”
“Of course I will,” he professed earnestly, embodying the grown-up good guy he’s becoming. And I believe him.
II
The other night, during a terrific Macbeth performance in the park, somewhere between the pasta salad and the roast chicken, my son lost another tooth. A back tooth – a substantial-looking tooth – yet he was rather laissez-faire about it, and kept on munching to the sword fights and witches and bloody mess that Lord and Lady Macbeth create every time.
I’m pretty sure he knows – and he’s pretty sure I know he knows – that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real, or rather, that I’m the Tooth Fairy. Once the Tooth Fairy left him a computer-generated note, in pink script, signed, “T.F.” – which created only a slight vacillation between belief and disbelief. His last tooth was met with a fresh $10 bill from the relative he was spending the night with – not even a pretense of magic, but as it was the highest amount he’d ever received for a body part, it seemed to work.
The night before last was my turn to vacillate. I know he doesn’t believe, yet I saw him take the tooth and wrap it up in a paper towel, slip it in his pocket, and take it home from our picnic. Saw him take it down to his room and put it under his pillow. But he knows it’s just a pure cash-for-tooth transaction, knows that it’s my wallet the cash is coming out of – and I let my sun-drenched, post-Shakespearean fatigue lead me to just go to sleep.
“I guess the Tooth Fairy was busy last night,” he said, before even “Good morning.” Hmmmm, I thought. “Hmmmm,” I replied, buying some seconds. “There might have been a lot of kids who lost teeth yesterday.” A slight twinkle in my eyes. And that was the end of it. He went on to have a full 10-year-old day at camp, and as he was heading to bed last night, he took the paper-towel tooth packet, which I didn’t realize had been on the kitchen table all day, and took it back down to his room. “For tonight,” he said.
“Got it,” I said, but not to him. This was direct, clear communication. Even as he’s getting closer to seeing me – literally – eye to eye, even as he has adventures on his own (like yesterday’s first day at a camp he’s not been to before), even as he moves closer and closer to that external world, where Mothers are left behind (and returned to – for all the mothers of boys out there, don’t fret – we don’t lose our sons permanently, but we do stay in a realm they often leave, and we cannot, should not, follow them out, but wait for their return. Our job is to build up that realm so that it doesn’t have big gaping holes in it that we then require our children to fill . . . that’s the surefire way to eject boys from our lives and make it so they don’t want to return – but that’s getting me off topic). Even as all this is happening, his young boy self still needs the magic.
So this morning he’ll find five far-less-than-crisp singles under his pillow – it will look exactly like the stack of non-ceremonial singles he’d find in my wallet, although now my wallet is empty.
I’m not sure what he will say, but that probably doesn’t matter. For this moment, he wanted – needed – the magic of childhood, where parental reliability forms the backdrop of safety. For a mere $5, I gave him just that – the magic of being seen by the people he loves, which will create today’s fuel to head out into the large, unpredictable world.
I
In a matter of just a few days, my son has grown taller, about a good inch, When I commented on it, showing him that now the top of his head is almost to my shoulder, he replied cheerfully, “So that’s why you look so small.”
He seems to like the idea of gaining on me. When all three of us were in the kitchen this morning, he told my husband how he thinks I’m getting smaller. Gleam in his eye.
I told him that soon he’ll be looking down on my pointy little head.
“You don’t have a pointy head,” he said, defending me against my own statement. “You have no idea what the top of my head looks like!” I replied, joking. “I will soon,” he proclaimed, half a dare, half not really believing it.
Much merriment, as three bodies swerved and collided in our too-small kitchen, hot cereal and coffee on one counter, camp lunch preparation plus breakfast on another, and dinner fixings edging close behind.
“When you’re looking down on me from up above,” I added, “be kind to me.”
“Of course I will,” he professed earnestly, embodying the grown-up good guy he’s becoming. And I believe him.
II
The other night, during a terrific Macbeth performance in the park, somewhere between the pasta salad and the roast chicken, my son lost another tooth. A back tooth – a substantial-looking tooth – yet he was rather laissez-faire about it, and kept on munching to the sword fights and witches and bloody mess that Lord and Lady Macbeth create every time.
I’m pretty sure he knows – and he’s pretty sure I know he knows – that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real, or rather, that I’m the Tooth Fairy. Once the Tooth Fairy left him a computer-generated note, in pink script, signed, “T.F.” – which created only a slight vacillation between belief and disbelief. His last tooth was met with a fresh $10 bill from the relative he was spending the night with – not even a pretense of magic, but as it was the highest amount he’d ever received for a body part, it seemed to work.
The night before last was my turn to vacillate. I know he doesn’t believe, yet I saw him take the tooth and wrap it up in a paper towel, slip it in his pocket, and take it home from our picnic. Saw him take it down to his room and put it under his pillow. But he knows it’s just a pure cash-for-tooth transaction, knows that it’s my wallet the cash is coming out of – and I let my sun-drenched, post-Shakespearean fatigue lead me to just go to sleep.
“I guess the Tooth Fairy was busy last night,” he said, before even “Good morning.” Hmmmm, I thought. “Hmmmm,” I replied, buying some seconds. “There might have been a lot of kids who lost teeth yesterday.” A slight twinkle in my eyes. And that was the end of it. He went on to have a full 10-year-old day at camp, and as he was heading to bed last night, he took the paper-towel tooth packet, which I didn’t realize had been on the kitchen table all day, and took it back down to his room. “For tonight,” he said.
“Got it,” I said, but not to him. This was direct, clear communication. Even as he’s getting closer to seeing me – literally – eye to eye, even as he has adventures on his own (like yesterday’s first day at a camp he’s not been to before), even as he moves closer and closer to that external world, where Mothers are left behind (and returned to – for all the mothers of boys out there, don’t fret – we don’t lose our sons permanently, but we do stay in a realm they often leave, and we cannot, should not, follow them out, but wait for their return. Our job is to build up that realm so that it doesn’t have big gaping holes in it that we then require our children to fill . . . that’s the surefire way to eject boys from our lives and make it so they don’t want to return – but that’s getting me off topic). Even as all this is happening, his young boy self still needs the magic.
So this morning he’ll find five far-less-than-crisp singles under his pillow – it will look exactly like the stack of non-ceremonial singles he’d find in my wallet, although now my wallet is empty.
I’m not sure what he will say, but that probably doesn’t matter. For this moment, he wanted – needed – the magic of childhood, where parental reliability forms the backdrop of safety. For a mere $5, I gave him just that – the magic of being seen by the people he loves, which will create today’s fuel to head out into the large, unpredictable world.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Invitation
A few days ago, a dear friend invited me to join in something that pushes the edges of my sense of self. Nothing dangerous or illegal, not even too silly (which I’d rarely decline anyway), but something that would require me to enhance and enlarge a part of my identity, and to move toward reclaiming a part of life I’d long ago given up as being impossible for me. I based my sense of self on what I thought I could do in life, and the types of things that were for others, but not me. So I excluded these things, without much regret, as it’s fairly easy to adjust to not having what’s not yours to have. I went on to build a fruitful and successful life within the confines of my mind and my personality, leaving out the bits I thought needed to be left out.
I’m fairly sure I’m not unique in honing myself down to some of my better qualities and characteristics, and foregoing others that seem out of reach or unlikely to work out. We’ve all given up ways of being in the service of promoting our development in other ways. We give up study for sports, travel for gardening, risk-taking for safety, sexuality for sleep (or sleep for sexuality!), intensity for stability, career exploration for insurance benefits, creativity for practicality, commitment for adventure . . . There’s no end to the variety of human experiences we could embrace and own, but instead we tend to limit ourselves to a very small slice of life’s pie.
Most people I know attain some level of their identity and there they stop. They create a life around that identity, which further reinforces it and makes straying from it impossible. And for many people, this is enough. This is life. On the other end of the continuum are the serial seekers – who want more and more and pursue path after path, which may or may not result in growth, but definitely in shifts and jolts of their sense of who they are.
I’m on neither side of that continuum. I don’t want to stop growing, but I don’t want to be forever searching and therefore unfulfilled because I’ve not arrived yet. I can look back to a few deepenings in my own life, so that the person I am today is not exactly the person I started out as. I’m not so different as to be unrecognizable as me, but I’ve not sat idly on a once-built sense of self. Some of these changes I sought out, some bonked me over the head when something essential in my life was challenged or taken away.
I like to think that I see the purpose of human experience as being additive – that we grow and peel away old and no-longer-useful ways of being and replace them with people and experiences and a sense of self that is stronger and more flexible. That the journey unceasingly goes from one moment of doing OK to taking a deep breath and starting the path to the next, deeper, more authentic us. And the cycle continues, without any finish line. Not quite like Prometheus, who pushes the same boulder up the same mountain, and not necessarily like the Phoenix, who is reborn after going down in flames. I’m thinking of something far less dramatic, but also something that most myth and fiction evade: the quest that doesn’t end, the journey that never leads back home. Becoming as a process. I am becoming. I have become. I will become. I am never done becoming me (if I am, I’m either stagnating or dead or holier than I will ever be, so I’d prefer the journey – I think).
Back to the invitation. I love this friend. I’ve shared some of my journey with this person, and it’s led to opening and growth, a deeper, truer sense of identity. Now it’s my friend’s turn, offering up a compelling invitation to me to add something in that will broaden my life. I have heard myself give me every reason to go ahead and step into the unknown. I can’t come up with a single “con” to counterbalance all the “pro’s.” There’s really no foreseeable drawback, except for the reworking of me, the giving up a strong sense that I must remain in the confines of the self I’ve built. And just so we’re clear, I happen to like the self I’ve built and rebuilt up to this point. It’s my best self to date. It’s this pull to stay the same that makes me hesitate. It’s one thing to rebuild ourselves from pain or the sense that if we don’t we risk staying in an unpleasant and unfulfilled version of ourselves. How do we rebuild if we risk losing a pretty good version of ourselves? I, who am involved daily with people reworking their sense of self, am at a crossroads to do a similar thing. Again.
Recognizing the internal belly flops and restless sleep as I pondered the invitation has shown me that I’ve fallen into the trap of resting on my identity laurels. I haven’t been journeying quite as much as I could have recently. I’ve paused the growth cycle, spending so much time reveling in this destination that I forgot to keep going. I basically have been on an extended picnic blanket when I should be packing up and heading onward. But here is my friend, extending a hand to help me up, encouraging me to pack up the basket and all the treats I've brought, brush the leaves and grass from my clothes, say goodbye to this beautiful place, and continue on. “There are more wonders ahead,” my friend is saying. “I’ll lead you there. Come with me.”
It’s a chance to become more. I’d be me but not me. Me more fully me. Me in a way I haven’t been before. I’ve been secretly hoping for this invitation because I can't get here on my own; I’d built all the usual beliefs around why I'm not that kind of person. But maybe I will be that kind of person.
All that remains is for me to say, “Yes.” And, “Thank you,” for inviting me.
I'll leave behind the best me I’ve ever had the pleasure of living in, with the hope that what’s next will be worth it. I’ll have new areas of insecurity, new victories, new ways of being vulnerable and hurt, and new ways of experiencing myself, others and life as a whole. I could grow old with these new ways of being, and at some point in the future these will be embedded in the Me that underlies my next reworking.
I realize I’m hurrying now, my thoughts are short and breathless. I don’t want to miss this opportunity. I have my answer:
Give me a moment to pack up my picnic things.
I’m coming with you.
You lead this time; I’ll follow.
Yes.
Thank you.
I’m fairly sure I’m not unique in honing myself down to some of my better qualities and characteristics, and foregoing others that seem out of reach or unlikely to work out. We’ve all given up ways of being in the service of promoting our development in other ways. We give up study for sports, travel for gardening, risk-taking for safety, sexuality for sleep (or sleep for sexuality!), intensity for stability, career exploration for insurance benefits, creativity for practicality, commitment for adventure . . . There’s no end to the variety of human experiences we could embrace and own, but instead we tend to limit ourselves to a very small slice of life’s pie.
Most people I know attain some level of their identity and there they stop. They create a life around that identity, which further reinforces it and makes straying from it impossible. And for many people, this is enough. This is life. On the other end of the continuum are the serial seekers – who want more and more and pursue path after path, which may or may not result in growth, but definitely in shifts and jolts of their sense of who they are.
I’m on neither side of that continuum. I don’t want to stop growing, but I don’t want to be forever searching and therefore unfulfilled because I’ve not arrived yet. I can look back to a few deepenings in my own life, so that the person I am today is not exactly the person I started out as. I’m not so different as to be unrecognizable as me, but I’ve not sat idly on a once-built sense of self. Some of these changes I sought out, some bonked me over the head when something essential in my life was challenged or taken away.
I like to think that I see the purpose of human experience as being additive – that we grow and peel away old and no-longer-useful ways of being and replace them with people and experiences and a sense of self that is stronger and more flexible. That the journey unceasingly goes from one moment of doing OK to taking a deep breath and starting the path to the next, deeper, more authentic us. And the cycle continues, without any finish line. Not quite like Prometheus, who pushes the same boulder up the same mountain, and not necessarily like the Phoenix, who is reborn after going down in flames. I’m thinking of something far less dramatic, but also something that most myth and fiction evade: the quest that doesn’t end, the journey that never leads back home. Becoming as a process. I am becoming. I have become. I will become. I am never done becoming me (if I am, I’m either stagnating or dead or holier than I will ever be, so I’d prefer the journey – I think).
Back to the invitation. I love this friend. I’ve shared some of my journey with this person, and it’s led to opening and growth, a deeper, truer sense of identity. Now it’s my friend’s turn, offering up a compelling invitation to me to add something in that will broaden my life. I have heard myself give me every reason to go ahead and step into the unknown. I can’t come up with a single “con” to counterbalance all the “pro’s.” There’s really no foreseeable drawback, except for the reworking of me, the giving up a strong sense that I must remain in the confines of the self I’ve built. And just so we’re clear, I happen to like the self I’ve built and rebuilt up to this point. It’s my best self to date. It’s this pull to stay the same that makes me hesitate. It’s one thing to rebuild ourselves from pain or the sense that if we don’t we risk staying in an unpleasant and unfulfilled version of ourselves. How do we rebuild if we risk losing a pretty good version of ourselves? I, who am involved daily with people reworking their sense of self, am at a crossroads to do a similar thing. Again.
Recognizing the internal belly flops and restless sleep as I pondered the invitation has shown me that I’ve fallen into the trap of resting on my identity laurels. I haven’t been journeying quite as much as I could have recently. I’ve paused the growth cycle, spending so much time reveling in this destination that I forgot to keep going. I basically have been on an extended picnic blanket when I should be packing up and heading onward. But here is my friend, extending a hand to help me up, encouraging me to pack up the basket and all the treats I've brought, brush the leaves and grass from my clothes, say goodbye to this beautiful place, and continue on. “There are more wonders ahead,” my friend is saying. “I’ll lead you there. Come with me.”
It’s a chance to become more. I’d be me but not me. Me more fully me. Me in a way I haven’t been before. I’ve been secretly hoping for this invitation because I can't get here on my own; I’d built all the usual beliefs around why I'm not that kind of person. But maybe I will be that kind of person.
All that remains is for me to say, “Yes.” And, “Thank you,” for inviting me.
I'll leave behind the best me I’ve ever had the pleasure of living in, with the hope that what’s next will be worth it. I’ll have new areas of insecurity, new victories, new ways of being vulnerable and hurt, and new ways of experiencing myself, others and life as a whole. I could grow old with these new ways of being, and at some point in the future these will be embedded in the Me that underlies my next reworking.
I realize I’m hurrying now, my thoughts are short and breathless. I don’t want to miss this opportunity. I have my answer:
Give me a moment to pack up my picnic things.
I’m coming with you.
You lead this time; I’ll follow.
Yes.
Thank you.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Harry Potter – Good. Voldemort - Bad.
Sometimes it’s good to keep things simple. To refrain from overanalyzing, sorting though, figuring out, staying in the gray between extremes or opposites.
Hot/Cold.
Good/Bad.
In/Out.
Soft/Hard.
Open/Closed.
Love/ ?
[What’s the opposite of love? Perhaps I’ve just stumbled on a topic for another day.]
Anyway, in everyday life, there is likely to be no absolute in these terms, and most of our time is spent in the middle. From childhood on, we work with kids, teenagers, and adults to understand and live in the complexity of life. To avoid polarities. No situation or person is all good or all bad. No one is all right or all wrong. There is a multicultural, deconstructionist framework to be applied to every person, every situation, every emotion and every thought. And once we can understand this complexity, we can figure out what to do in a given situation, and this is the path to healthy choices. This is the sign of advanced, mature functioning.
There are times, however, when I prefer a Sesame Street kind of simplicity. The show has become a present-day global, multimedia, educational force, but previously, before the plasticene era (which I love the sound of, but don’t really know what this term means, so forgive me for using it without knowing what I’m conveying), it focused on the simplest learning tasks for toddlers and preschoolers, teaching them fundamental building blocks that would later serve as the basis from which kids would have to form complex and mixed thinking.
Sesame Street used to teach word opposites, just like my list. And as I got older, way older, I learned that they also did these in Spanish. They’d use a sing-song melody, words flashing in large white font, set against a primary color square, divided into four rectangles. First in English, then in Spanish. The voices would repeat, the white words would shimmer and shake when they were called out.
For some reason, Abrido/Cerrado has stayed with me all these years. I’m pretty sure it means open/closed, but even if it doesn’t translate exactly, that’s what’s in my memory. I’ve used it more times than I should probably admit, with friends, colleagues, even students or people at work. It’s a quick and useful metaphor to cue people to stay emotionally open, when the urge is to close. People seem to recognize intuitively that they have such an opening/closing process, even if they’ve never thought of it in that way before. We’re a lot like poppies, which open and close daily, turning to the sun and then closing down for the night to protect our precious pollen. Nyctinasty, it’s called, this process of closing at the onset of darkness.
The other day, I was driving home, reciting “abrido/cerrado” like a mantra, over and over. I was anticipating some bad news, and could feel the darkness of my worry. “Can I stay open for 30 minutes?” I asked myself. “I don’t know,” my overly emotional self replied. “Let’s see.”
I used every bit of Sesame Street coaching to keep me in check. I did OK, staying open and receiving the news, and moving quickly to an analysis of the complex ways in which it was neither all good nor all bad, the strengths and possibilities inherent as well as the meaning for possible losses. By the end, I had sorted it out, felt a variety of emotions, and concluded that indeed the situation was not that great, but was certainly livable, and the essentials of life in my known universe would go on.
Sometimes life shows up like the twinkling magic of Hogwarts’ dining hall, and sometimes like the darkness of the Forever Forest, instead. I stayed open in the face of darkness, then rallied my higher level forces to figure out what to do with the shadows and gloom. This might be how we’re all supposed to do it, to stay open enough to create light and goodness in the face of what seems initially like a Dark Lord’s wrath.
Hot/Cold.
Good/Bad.
In/Out.
Soft/Hard.
Open/Closed.
Love/ ?
[What’s the opposite of love? Perhaps I’ve just stumbled on a topic for another day.]
Anyway, in everyday life, there is likely to be no absolute in these terms, and most of our time is spent in the middle. From childhood on, we work with kids, teenagers, and adults to understand and live in the complexity of life. To avoid polarities. No situation or person is all good or all bad. No one is all right or all wrong. There is a multicultural, deconstructionist framework to be applied to every person, every situation, every emotion and every thought. And once we can understand this complexity, we can figure out what to do in a given situation, and this is the path to healthy choices. This is the sign of advanced, mature functioning.
There are times, however, when I prefer a Sesame Street kind of simplicity. The show has become a present-day global, multimedia, educational force, but previously, before the plasticene era (which I love the sound of, but don’t really know what this term means, so forgive me for using it without knowing what I’m conveying), it focused on the simplest learning tasks for toddlers and preschoolers, teaching them fundamental building blocks that would later serve as the basis from which kids would have to form complex and mixed thinking.
Sesame Street used to teach word opposites, just like my list. And as I got older, way older, I learned that they also did these in Spanish. They’d use a sing-song melody, words flashing in large white font, set against a primary color square, divided into four rectangles. First in English, then in Spanish. The voices would repeat, the white words would shimmer and shake when they were called out.
For some reason, Abrido/Cerrado has stayed with me all these years. I’m pretty sure it means open/closed, but even if it doesn’t translate exactly, that’s what’s in my memory. I’ve used it more times than I should probably admit, with friends, colleagues, even students or people at work. It’s a quick and useful metaphor to cue people to stay emotionally open, when the urge is to close. People seem to recognize intuitively that they have such an opening/closing process, even if they’ve never thought of it in that way before. We’re a lot like poppies, which open and close daily, turning to the sun and then closing down for the night to protect our precious pollen. Nyctinasty, it’s called, this process of closing at the onset of darkness.
The other day, I was driving home, reciting “abrido/cerrado” like a mantra, over and over. I was anticipating some bad news, and could feel the darkness of my worry. “Can I stay open for 30 minutes?” I asked myself. “I don’t know,” my overly emotional self replied. “Let’s see.”
I used every bit of Sesame Street coaching to keep me in check. I did OK, staying open and receiving the news, and moving quickly to an analysis of the complex ways in which it was neither all good nor all bad, the strengths and possibilities inherent as well as the meaning for possible losses. By the end, I had sorted it out, felt a variety of emotions, and concluded that indeed the situation was not that great, but was certainly livable, and the essentials of life in my known universe would go on.
Sometimes life shows up like the twinkling magic of Hogwarts’ dining hall, and sometimes like the darkness of the Forever Forest, instead. I stayed open in the face of darkness, then rallied my higher level forces to figure out what to do with the shadows and gloom. This might be how we’re all supposed to do it, to stay open enough to create light and goodness in the face of what seems initially like a Dark Lord’s wrath.
Monday, July 25, 2011
A Bit of a Slump
I was in a bit of a slump the other day, piggybacking on other people’s slumps the way a summer cold passes through a household, and you end up sniffling and chilled after watching everyone else go through it yet somehow telling yourself you’ll be spared. I shouldn’t have been surprised, really, as the slump was so palpable around me, but there’s nothing like a good education, lifelong dedication to personal growth, and years of experience in the helping professions to cultivate little moments of personal surprise.
So I was surprised and in a slump. Hmmm. Best way out? A good book or an episode of Glee. I know I’m late to Glee, even later to Netflix, but so be it. Just the fact that the entire first season is on my “instant queue” is enough to lift my spirits. The idea that there are enough people in the world who would make a musical TV show popular is reassurance enough, as I rarely meet others who will watch Grease, Momma Mia, West Side Story and all the rest as many times as I can, not feeling the least bit foolish crooning every word to every part, swaggering the male vocals, swooning the female ballads, shouting out the choral parts, with surety and sensual sass about love and lust and love lost and love found and love transcending. Of course, I can’t really watch Glee unless I’m alone – the content is too mature for kids, I don’t care how catchy the tunes are, and I need to be completely alone so I can turn the music up, way up, and shake my stuff with the dance scenes. I’m sure it’s quite a sight. I love to hate the despicable characters, ache with the as-yet (and I’m only on episode 6, so no one tell me how it turns out) unrequited love between the OCD guidance counselor and the married head of Glee Club. But more than anything I can convey in print, I loved watching the football team dance in formation to Beyoncé’s Single Ladies. I watched that scene twice. I’m sure I'll watch it again.
Since the house was peopled with others-in-a-slump, my instant-fix was unavailable. On to number two – a good book by an author who can provide a little pick-me-up. I’m 15 years late to Marian Keyes, as her first novel was published in 1995. (So my lateness to Glee is actually less late than . . .). I picked up her latest novel and listened to it, enjoying the lilt of the Irish, the delight of unexpected Irish profanity, and the satisfaction of the story line. Then I went on to listen to her first collection of first-person journalism essays, and found myself laughing and nodding my head in agreement as she described the surprise of her life becoming a writer. I see from reviews that her writing falls into the category of Chick Lit, but that seems a bit condescending. Jane Austen wrote about the same things, but we call her oeuvre “romantic fiction” and we look back on her writing now as historical or period pieces. Perhaps, then, Chick Lit is our period’s romantic fiction, and will one day be elevated to regular literature - we just need another hundred years or so to pass.
I decided to read her first book, since I’d started with her last. Where did this author begin? What were the ideas and who were the people in her mind as she made the transition from accounts clerk to writer? Was she as strong a writer out of the gate, or has she matured over time? And, less loftier, did the book come on CD so I could listen to it at the gym?
The book came the other day, so it was a fresh start with it. I took my slumpy self off and got on the eliptical and listened to what turns out to be a story of a woman whose husband leaves her the day their baby is born. It’s set as a comedy, and perhaps it will become one, but the first 40 minutes (duration of my cardio workout) left me a bit saddened. I don’t yet like these characters very much, but I imagine I will, as I like the author so darned much. Just like reading People magazine and finding out what’s wrong with, well, the People, then feeling better about ourselves, I did feel a tiny bit better.
Until I got to a small passage, nearly at the 40-minute mark, about the way people create a narrative of how life doles out bad things, that ultimately did the trick:
So I was surprised and in a slump. Hmmm. Best way out? A good book or an episode of Glee. I know I’m late to Glee, even later to Netflix, but so be it. Just the fact that the entire first season is on my “instant queue” is enough to lift my spirits. The idea that there are enough people in the world who would make a musical TV show popular is reassurance enough, as I rarely meet others who will watch Grease, Momma Mia, West Side Story and all the rest as many times as I can, not feeling the least bit foolish crooning every word to every part, swaggering the male vocals, swooning the female ballads, shouting out the choral parts, with surety and sensual sass about love and lust and love lost and love found and love transcending. Of course, I can’t really watch Glee unless I’m alone – the content is too mature for kids, I don’t care how catchy the tunes are, and I need to be completely alone so I can turn the music up, way up, and shake my stuff with the dance scenes. I’m sure it’s quite a sight. I love to hate the despicable characters, ache with the as-yet (and I’m only on episode 6, so no one tell me how it turns out) unrequited love between the OCD guidance counselor and the married head of Glee Club. But more than anything I can convey in print, I loved watching the football team dance in formation to Beyoncé’s Single Ladies. I watched that scene twice. I’m sure I'll watch it again.
Since the house was peopled with others-in-a-slump, my instant-fix was unavailable. On to number two – a good book by an author who can provide a little pick-me-up. I’m 15 years late to Marian Keyes, as her first novel was published in 1995. (So my lateness to Glee is actually less late than . . .). I picked up her latest novel and listened to it, enjoying the lilt of the Irish, the delight of unexpected Irish profanity, and the satisfaction of the story line. Then I went on to listen to her first collection of first-person journalism essays, and found myself laughing and nodding my head in agreement as she described the surprise of her life becoming a writer. I see from reviews that her writing falls into the category of Chick Lit, but that seems a bit condescending. Jane Austen wrote about the same things, but we call her oeuvre “romantic fiction” and we look back on her writing now as historical or period pieces. Perhaps, then, Chick Lit is our period’s romantic fiction, and will one day be elevated to regular literature - we just need another hundred years or so to pass.
I decided to read her first book, since I’d started with her last. Where did this author begin? What were the ideas and who were the people in her mind as she made the transition from accounts clerk to writer? Was she as strong a writer out of the gate, or has she matured over time? And, less loftier, did the book come on CD so I could listen to it at the gym?
The book came the other day, so it was a fresh start with it. I took my slumpy self off and got on the eliptical and listened to what turns out to be a story of a woman whose husband leaves her the day their baby is born. It’s set as a comedy, and perhaps it will become one, but the first 40 minutes (duration of my cardio workout) left me a bit saddened. I don’t yet like these characters very much, but I imagine I will, as I like the author so darned much. Just like reading People magazine and finding out what’s wrong with, well, the People, then feeling better about ourselves, I did feel a tiny bit better.
Until I got to a small passage, nearly at the 40-minute mark, about the way people create a narrative of how life doles out bad things, that ultimately did the trick:
Nothing in my mostly great life is as bad as this. I don’t have even a single disaster, let alone multiples, on my plate. De-slumped, I took my post-work-out victorious self home, and then spent a day in the sun with my clan. By the end of the day, there was overall less slump-age, and the trajectory is good for this bug getting out of our household and moving on to the next, just like our summer cold did last month.Up to now I suppose that I'd thought that life doled out the unpleasant things to me in evenly spaced bite-size pieces. That it never gave me more than I could cope with at one time.
When I used to hear about people who had serial disasters, like having a car accident, losing a job and catching their boyfriend in bed with their sister all in one week, I used to kind of think it was their fault. Well, not exactly their fault. But I thought that if people behaved like victims they would become victims, if people expected the worst to happen then it invariably did.
I could see now how wrong I was. Sometimes people don't volunteer to be victims and they become victims anyway. It's not their fault. It certainly wasn't my fault that my husband thought that he'd fallen in love with someone else. I didn't expect it to happen and I certainly didn't want it to happen. But it had happened.
I knew then that life was no respecter of circumstance. The force that flings disasters at us doesn't say "Well, I won't give her that lump in her breast for another year. Best to let her recover from the death of her mother first." It just goes right on ahead and does whatever it feels like, whenever it feels like it.Now I realized that no one is immune from the serial disaster syndrome.
-Marian Keyes, Watermelon (1995)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Summer Rain
I woke up early this morning, and heard the sheets of rain as they were coming down, the loud, individual drips from the drain pipes, and from the window in my office, I now hear the water pooling, gurgling almost, in a part of our lawn which has insufficient drainage, and the additional drip of water into the eddies and puddles on our patio, because it has, I guess, insufficient drainage.
I grew up with Midwestern summer rain – thunder storms and lightening and the way the air got warmer and wetter and thicker as rain approached. Rain that might not break the heat. Rain that, in combination with humid air above lakes and rivers, fomented into the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. If I’d bothered to take Zoology 101 in college, I’d have learned the reason: A warm, moderately humid climate and fertile soil are favorable for insect population growth. I’d have also learned that some mosquito species fly into the wind, others against the wind, so no matter how much wind we’d have, it would help these little critters, dispersing them to even more favorable breeding grounds. What the Professor and the textbook wouldn’t have explained, however, is how it was that the entire mosquito population in the Midwest seemed intent on one destination: my body.
Apparently, some people are more sensitive to the chemicals the mosquitoes leave behind – some people barely feel the itch. I, as will come as no surprise, am on the sensitive side of things – emotional and physical and, apparently, metabolic. So when I get bit, I itch. A lot.
This was the era of calamine lotion, which, given as much time as I spent sporting a body suit of pink blotches, would have been a better era if the lotion had worked. This was the era of sleep-away camps and cans of Off. I sprayed myself until I had fumes rising off my clothes and hair, but still, put me in an area with other humans and mosquitoes, and the outcome is reliable – I’m gonna get bit. A lot.
When I was in my 20’s, and headed off to my first and only Club Med experience, I’d pre-dosed myself for two weeks with Vitamin B tablets, as I’d heard that if I ingested enough of this vitamin, my blood would change, making me no longer the human equivalent of a mosquito meth lab. I took a lot of vitamin B. I got bit less than my travel companion. But I got bit.
Over the years, my plight has been shared, and the war against mosquitoes has become more effective. Citronella candles – where were you when my folks wanted to eat on the patio in summer? DEET, oh DEET, why did you stay away so long?
Last summer, on a weekend trip to a National Park, I found the perfect combination for me: I pre-treated my clothes with stuff that was supposed to get in the fibers and repel insects. I combined every possible high-level topical repellant and slathered myself multiple times a day. I sprayed additional stuff over my (pre-treated) clothes. I wore multiple layers. I sprayed the tent, inside and out. Sprayed the sleeping bags. I stunk, my clothes stunk, my skin had a yellow-green sheen, and my Off™ Clip-On battery-operated fan made a low, consistent noise everywhere I went, sending toxic fumes circulating around me. At night, I hung the Off fan inside the tent. My trip is underscored by the white noise of the continuous murmur of the fan.
Other people who visit National Parks are apparently there to celebrate Nature. They might wear a layer or two, or even put on a “natural” repellant. To them, I was the eco-anti-Christ. It’s possible that there will be mutant forms of fauna and flora that will one day be traced back to the introduction of my chemical warfare last July. But, by the end of our trip, I noticed that the most virulent of the eye-ball starers sidled up to me at the campfire, surreptitiously standing in my circulating stream, stealing my protection like it was the neighbor’s wi-fi.
I grew up with Midwestern summer rain – thunder storms and lightening and the way the air got warmer and wetter and thicker as rain approached. Rain that might not break the heat. Rain that, in combination with humid air above lakes and rivers, fomented into the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. If I’d bothered to take Zoology 101 in college, I’d have learned the reason: A warm, moderately humid climate and fertile soil are favorable for insect population growth. I’d have also learned that some mosquito species fly into the wind, others against the wind, so no matter how much wind we’d have, it would help these little critters, dispersing them to even more favorable breeding grounds. What the Professor and the textbook wouldn’t have explained, however, is how it was that the entire mosquito population in the Midwest seemed intent on one destination: my body.
Apparently, some people are more sensitive to the chemicals the mosquitoes leave behind – some people barely feel the itch. I, as will come as no surprise, am on the sensitive side of things – emotional and physical and, apparently, metabolic. So when I get bit, I itch. A lot.
This was the era of calamine lotion, which, given as much time as I spent sporting a body suit of pink blotches, would have been a better era if the lotion had worked. This was the era of sleep-away camps and cans of Off. I sprayed myself until I had fumes rising off my clothes and hair, but still, put me in an area with other humans and mosquitoes, and the outcome is reliable – I’m gonna get bit. A lot.
When I was in my 20’s, and headed off to my first and only Club Med experience, I’d pre-dosed myself for two weeks with Vitamin B tablets, as I’d heard that if I ingested enough of this vitamin, my blood would change, making me no longer the human equivalent of a mosquito meth lab. I took a lot of vitamin B. I got bit less than my travel companion. But I got bit.
Over the years, my plight has been shared, and the war against mosquitoes has become more effective. Citronella candles – where were you when my folks wanted to eat on the patio in summer? DEET, oh DEET, why did you stay away so long?
Last summer, on a weekend trip to a National Park, I found the perfect combination for me: I pre-treated my clothes with stuff that was supposed to get in the fibers and repel insects. I combined every possible high-level topical repellant and slathered myself multiple times a day. I sprayed additional stuff over my (pre-treated) clothes. I wore multiple layers. I sprayed the tent, inside and out. Sprayed the sleeping bags. I stunk, my clothes stunk, my skin had a yellow-green sheen, and my Off™ Clip-On battery-operated fan made a low, consistent noise everywhere I went, sending toxic fumes circulating around me. At night, I hung the Off fan inside the tent. My trip is underscored by the white noise of the continuous murmur of the fan.
Other people who visit National Parks are apparently there to celebrate Nature. They might wear a layer or two, or even put on a “natural” repellant. To them, I was the eco-anti-Christ. It’s possible that there will be mutant forms of fauna and flora that will one day be traced back to the introduction of my chemical warfare last July. But, by the end of our trip, I noticed that the most virulent of the eye-ball starers sidled up to me at the campfire, surreptitiously standing in my circulating stream, stealing my protection like it was the neighbor’s wi-fi.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Marriage Poems
A backwater town (if only there was water) nestled in base of a mountain valley, in a county called Mineral County, with a 2010 census of 410 people (up from 2000, when the town had a mere 374 people living in 152 households) is host to a bookstore proclaiming “100,000 Used Books.”
So off the interstate we turn, neither one of us able to resist a used bookstore. Having spent some long afternoons at Powell’s as well as stopping in used bookstores in just about every town we ever visit, we have proof on our bookshelves of the wisdom of stopping. Treasures – old tomes, newer children’s books, collections of poetry, art coffee table books, classic fiction, books that will end up as next season’s Christmas gifts, psychology and philosophy and history and comparative religion and books about food and wine and cooking ...
My husband, who is taller and can actually examine items on the top shelves - and can hold more books in his arms - always comes away with more selections than me – the lower-shelf browser with girl-sized arms. We stay as long as we can before the inevitable cat hair and dust overwhelm my system, and I reluctantly must head to the counter to make my purchases. I could stay longer, I imagine, if I brought my own oxygen tank.
But back to the backwater. We pull up in this very small town, only to realize we’d made the same decision four years ago, the adventuresome spirit of just popping off the highway to explore something cool and new slightly deflating. But we’re here, so we do what all married couples do – repeat the past. As soon as we’re in the door, we’ve confirmed, that yes, this is the same place. It may have 100,000 books, but that includes the ones piled all the way to the ceiling. And since it gets its inventory from the surrounding area, it has slightly less breadth and depth than if it were closer to anything mildly urban. So the odds of finding a treasure today are slim.
Off I head to Literature and Poetry; my husband heads to Psychology. My eye wanders over some compilations, some poets I’ve (of course) never heard of, and rests on a little white tome, just 6½ inches high, called, Marriage Poems. The cover promises a “sparkling collection of poems about virtually every aspect of matrimony” with contributions from Shakespeare, Omar Khayyám, D.H. Lawrence, Ovid and even the Song of Songs from the Old Testament.
We’d been feeling very couple-y on our road trip, as we had the luxury to spend hours discussing our relationship and our parenting, concluding that we’re just delighted with ourselves. We might have edited out some things, and put a positive spin on some of our less great bits, but it’s nice to spend time glorifying one another rather than a tempting, yet toxic, tug to find fault. Plus, we’re coming up to our anniversary. I figured I’d get the book, and we’d read love poems to each other that night. Not that we have a big history with doing this, but there have been the few times.
As we got back in to the car, with this as our sole purchase, and drove off, I started going through the pages. “Read me one,” my husband requested. I’d just finished the first one, and it was sing-songy and evoked an image of busty young maidens dancing around the May pole. I read it anyway. He was under-impressed. The second reading produced a vague sexual reference I’d missed the first time, but still nothing great. Just because I can’t resist, here’s the last stanza:
Later that night, I kept pouring through the book, expectantly waiting for the ones we could read to each other to highlight our road-trip romance.
Except that I couldn’t find a single poem I liked. Even the segment from Song of Songs wasn’t as pleasing as the part that was in our marriage ceremony: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” I suppose mine wasn’t from the King James Version, but still, you’d think it would sound as good.
We’ll have to wait to find love poems that convey more, well, love. I’m tempted to write a poem about unappealing marriage poems, that perhaps one day will end up in a slight compilation in a musty, dusty, used bookstore. Until then, this entry will have to suffice.
So off the interstate we turn, neither one of us able to resist a used bookstore. Having spent some long afternoons at Powell’s as well as stopping in used bookstores in just about every town we ever visit, we have proof on our bookshelves of the wisdom of stopping. Treasures – old tomes, newer children’s books, collections of poetry, art coffee table books, classic fiction, books that will end up as next season’s Christmas gifts, psychology and philosophy and history and comparative religion and books about food and wine and cooking ...
My husband, who is taller and can actually examine items on the top shelves - and can hold more books in his arms - always comes away with more selections than me – the lower-shelf browser with girl-sized arms. We stay as long as we can before the inevitable cat hair and dust overwhelm my system, and I reluctantly must head to the counter to make my purchases. I could stay longer, I imagine, if I brought my own oxygen tank.
But back to the backwater. We pull up in this very small town, only to realize we’d made the same decision four years ago, the adventuresome spirit of just popping off the highway to explore something cool and new slightly deflating. But we’re here, so we do what all married couples do – repeat the past. As soon as we’re in the door, we’ve confirmed, that yes, this is the same place. It may have 100,000 books, but that includes the ones piled all the way to the ceiling. And since it gets its inventory from the surrounding area, it has slightly less breadth and depth than if it were closer to anything mildly urban. So the odds of finding a treasure today are slim.
Off I head to Literature and Poetry; my husband heads to Psychology. My eye wanders over some compilations, some poets I’ve (of course) never heard of, and rests on a little white tome, just 6½ inches high, called, Marriage Poems. The cover promises a “sparkling collection of poems about virtually every aspect of matrimony” with contributions from Shakespeare, Omar Khayyám, D.H. Lawrence, Ovid and even the Song of Songs from the Old Testament.
We’d been feeling very couple-y on our road trip, as we had the luxury to spend hours discussing our relationship and our parenting, concluding that we’re just delighted with ourselves. We might have edited out some things, and put a positive spin on some of our less great bits, but it’s nice to spend time glorifying one another rather than a tempting, yet toxic, tug to find fault. Plus, we’re coming up to our anniversary. I figured I’d get the book, and we’d read love poems to each other that night. Not that we have a big history with doing this, but there have been the few times.
As we got back in to the car, with this as our sole purchase, and drove off, I started going through the pages. “Read me one,” my husband requested. I’d just finished the first one, and it was sing-songy and evoked an image of busty young maidens dancing around the May pole. I read it anyway. He was under-impressed. The second reading produced a vague sexual reference I’d missed the first time, but still nothing great. Just because I can’t resist, here’s the last stanza:
My husband will buy me a guinea gold ring,Thankfully, there’s no known author.
And at night he’ll give me a far better thing,
With two precious jewels he’ll be me adorning,
When I am his bride, on Monday morning.
Later that night, I kept pouring through the book, expectantly waiting for the ones we could read to each other to highlight our road-trip romance.
Except that I couldn’t find a single poem I liked. Even the segment from Song of Songs wasn’t as pleasing as the part that was in our marriage ceremony: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” I suppose mine wasn’t from the King James Version, but still, you’d think it would sound as good.
We’ll have to wait to find love poems that convey more, well, love. I’m tempted to write a poem about unappealing marriage poems, that perhaps one day will end up in a slight compilation in a musty, dusty, used bookstore. Until then, this entry will have to suffice.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Cave Dwelling
I went summer adventuring in the Lewis and Clark Caverns outside Three Forks, Montana. Went into the caves, down and down and down, through magnificent stalagmite and stalactite formations, past the colony of fluttering brown bats, as we clamored down, squatting at times, duck-walking, sliding down the slippery bits, careful not to hit our heads, then exclaiming in awe – again and again- at the next room-full of treasures, hearing and sometimes feeling the drip-drip-drip that is continuing to create these extraordinary configurations. Confronted the tiny prickles of fear about how much oxygen is in a cave, and whether humans in general should be in caves, and whether I, in particular, was safe, wondered whether I should have taken the guide up on her offer at “Decision Rock” – the last place on the tour where one could turn around, mount the 125 steps already descended, and go back to the cave opening. Whether I was asking just a bit more of myself than I should, since until that day I hadn’t quite known what spelunking was.I did what I know you’re supposed to do with fear – notice it, honor it, and put it aside as I went along, slowly picking my footing, taking pictures (hard to get good pix in a dark cave on a mediocre digital camera, but still I tried), and gasping with wide-eyed wonder at each new turn, each set of steps descended, each new mineral cache. My mind took several tries to comprehend the sign that read, “One mile high” at the point where we’d been constantly descending the cavern for over 90 minutes, and had reached a height that was one mile above sea level. I’m still processing the idea that each of the 600 carved steps required three days of a man’s labor – hauling materials in buckets in and out of the two mile path within the cave itself, not to mention carrying materials up the side of the mountain to reach the cave entrance.
Our tour guide sprinkled cave jokes (apparently there’s such a thing as cave humor) into her impressive information about the cave, its founders, the people who came after, and offered up explanations of all the different types of limestone formations. There was also a moment where the guide shut off her flashlight and plunged our group into darkness more complete than ever encountered in civilized life. She’d just finished her story of a guy who got trapped in the cave for 72 hours with no light, and ended up hallucinating, not knowing if he was lying down or standing up, crazed and blinded by darkness. I sidled close to my husband to hold his hand, the body connection a protective talisman as we were plunged into total blackness.After this, my fears of being in the cave were gone. I felt stoked and strong and brave and powerful and, at the same time, tiny and inconsequential in the grander scheme of amazing things on this Earth.
Near the end, the guide pointed her flashlight beam on an area of circuitous, curly, spindly formations, nothing like the others that grow vertically, as these spread horizontally as they curve and wind and meander. These, she said, are helictites, which she pronounced with a raw, guttural chhhh instead of a plain “h.” “Can you say, “helictites”?” she playfully asked our group of visitors, and I was the only one who could without even the tiniest hesitation.They seemed to have been made just for me – a Yiddish-sounding limestone formation as unique in the cave as my long curly locks in a sea of Montana tourists.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Benefit of an Enemy
The other day I was in charge of 4 10-year-old boys for a beach adventure, so there was digging, planning, creating the world’s most intricate city of sand. A few times one boy chose more solitary pursuits while the others built and dug; he seamlessly joined and left the group to fly a kite, kick a ball, or head down to the water. The bossier of the bunch (mine) was forthright in ideas; he and another boy, who also has strong ideas about how things should be done, had, of course, ideas, and their grand plans sprang off one another’s, without much conflict, toward ever more grandiose plans.
Eventually, however, the emotional pushes and pulls grew and one boy set himself apart, sitting alone on a bench by for a short time. When I went to intervene, he told me, “I’ll just sit here by myself.”
It took a while to piece together the story, but eventually I learned he’d threatened and tried to destroy the sand creation the others were making. Aah, that’s why the others iced him out. And thus began a string of teachable moments. “People really don’t like others smooshing their creations,” and variations on that theme. I got this boy to start building his own creation out of driftwood, on a separate part of the beach. I then solicited the help of another boy to dig a hole for a wooden tower. Other teachable moments to the three diggers: "You can't ice out one of your friends," and "You must work as a team, solve your conflicts as a team," and variations on that theme.
We were making some slow progress on reuniting the group and soothing ruffled feathers. The diggers returned to the megalopolis in the sand, and the one boy continued his solitary driftwood creation. With the help of the boy who’d dug a hole for him, he’d raised a taller-than-him wooden pole (“it will be the corner for my fort”), and now was fortifying the base so it wouldn’t fall over. After being out of favor with the other boys, his unconscious understood that he needed to rebuild his masculine power to rejoin them, even though his conscious mind didn’t know how to make this happen.
After some refueling with lunch, sitting all together in the shadow of the driftwood phallus, the boys set out to build and dig again. Together. As if they’d unconsciously absorbed the invitation to healthy masculinity and teamwork. Their city became larger and much more elaborate, until they destroyed it - together - in the service of digging a hole.
And here’s where the universe sent some help, in the form of a group of younger kids, who copied the efforts of my group. My group turned them in to THE ENEMY. Nothing could have solidified my foursome quite like the imaginary and yet fully cultivated threat of this other tribe. My tribe came together in complete solidarity, as they shifted roles – some “protecting” their dig site, some scouting out the other site, turn-taking to keep building so that their site was indeed the best. They had become a four-headed machine, creating and digging and removing sand with a palpable sense of purpose. It was for the good-natured grown-ups on the beach to recall the “goodwill between men” philosophy and to marvel at the creativeness of kids left to their own. The boys were now intent on building the biggest, deepest hole ever seen on any beach, anywhere. Any conflicts or squabbles now were managed effectively by themselves, short-lived frustrations that didn’t have enough energy in them to last more than a few moments before they re-aligned themselves to the task.
As they shifted from a group of boys to a tribe, I shifted from Mom to Tribal Elder. It was my responsibility to guide and maintain a moderate level of intergroup communication and conflict, rather than squelch it, to feed the flames of creativity, energy, ambition and focus, so that both tribes were at their best. To avoid unnecessary escalation and scuffles, I peppered the interactions with instruction on how to interact when members of each tribe veered over to the other’s dig site. “Watch with respect!” and “Bodies to yourselves!” I offered, many times. These warnings might still be carried on the breeze over the water, heading whichever ways the wind will blow, perhaps even to today’s beachcombers and builders.
As Tribal Elder, it was also my responsibility to call an end to the excavation, when the adventure and independence of digging was matched by concern for the structure’s stability. My tribe thought we were leaving because the rain came, but Elders use whatever natural forces occur to guide their tribe.
When we'd packed up our gear, the hole was over four feet deep, with two antechambers. Members of the other tribe were able to offer compliments to mine, the equivalent of ball players shaking hands after a game, losers praising the skill of those who bested them. I can’t say my guys were as gracious, as they were awash in the glory of the victory and a mix of pride and amazement at their accomplishment.
But they’d done more than win.
Throughout this day, not a single one of the boys understood that “imitation is a form of flattery” and that the other group was never, in fact, a threat, but was an admiring audience that fed off their energy to do something they never would have thought of on their own. Somehow my guys sensed that their need to re-build the friendship and repair the before-lunch rupture was more powerful than any other urge or need, and in that service, they transformed the other kids’ energy of admiration into the energy of in-group/out-group conflict, pulling themselves together into an indestructible “us.” The walk back to the car was filled with “Next time, we should _______________” plans so that their future efforts will be even more amazing. Four boys built – a sand city, a driftwood tower, eventually a dig site – but mostly they constructed a stronger foundation for their friendship, which now includes life-long memories of coming together to dig the biggest hole ever dug on that beach.
Eventually, however, the emotional pushes and pulls grew and one boy set himself apart, sitting alone on a bench by for a short time. When I went to intervene, he told me, “I’ll just sit here by myself.”
It took a while to piece together the story, but eventually I learned he’d threatened and tried to destroy the sand creation the others were making. Aah, that’s why the others iced him out. And thus began a string of teachable moments. “People really don’t like others smooshing their creations,” and variations on that theme. I got this boy to start building his own creation out of driftwood, on a separate part of the beach. I then solicited the help of another boy to dig a hole for a wooden tower. Other teachable moments to the three diggers: "You can't ice out one of your friends," and "You must work as a team, solve your conflicts as a team," and variations on that theme.
We were making some slow progress on reuniting the group and soothing ruffled feathers. The diggers returned to the megalopolis in the sand, and the one boy continued his solitary driftwood creation. With the help of the boy who’d dug a hole for him, he’d raised a taller-than-him wooden pole (“it will be the corner for my fort”), and now was fortifying the base so it wouldn’t fall over. After being out of favor with the other boys, his unconscious understood that he needed to rebuild his masculine power to rejoin them, even though his conscious mind didn’t know how to make this happen.After some refueling with lunch, sitting all together in the shadow of the driftwood phallus, the boys set out to build and dig again. Together. As if they’d unconsciously absorbed the invitation to healthy masculinity and teamwork. Their city became larger and much more elaborate, until they destroyed it - together - in the service of digging a hole.
And here’s where the universe sent some help, in the form of a group of younger kids, who copied the efforts of my group. My group turned them in to THE ENEMY. Nothing could have solidified my foursome quite like the imaginary and yet fully cultivated threat of this other tribe. My tribe came together in complete solidarity, as they shifted roles – some “protecting” their dig site, some scouting out the other site, turn-taking to keep building so that their site was indeed the best. They had become a four-headed machine, creating and digging and removing sand with a palpable sense of purpose. It was for the good-natured grown-ups on the beach to recall the “goodwill between men” philosophy and to marvel at the creativeness of kids left to their own. The boys were now intent on building the biggest, deepest hole ever seen on any beach, anywhere. Any conflicts or squabbles now were managed effectively by themselves, short-lived frustrations that didn’t have enough energy in them to last more than a few moments before they re-aligned themselves to the task.
As they shifted from a group of boys to a tribe, I shifted from Mom to Tribal Elder. It was my responsibility to guide and maintain a moderate level of intergroup communication and conflict, rather than squelch it, to feed the flames of creativity, energy, ambition and focus, so that both tribes were at their best. To avoid unnecessary escalation and scuffles, I peppered the interactions with instruction on how to interact when members of each tribe veered over to the other’s dig site. “Watch with respect!” and “Bodies to yourselves!” I offered, many times. These warnings might still be carried on the breeze over the water, heading whichever ways the wind will blow, perhaps even to today’s beachcombers and builders.
As Tribal Elder, it was also my responsibility to call an end to the excavation, when the adventure and independence of digging was matched by concern for the structure’s stability. My tribe thought we were leaving because the rain came, but Elders use whatever natural forces occur to guide their tribe.
When we'd packed up our gear, the hole was over four feet deep, with two antechambers. Members of the other tribe were able to offer compliments to mine, the equivalent of ball players shaking hands after a game, losers praising the skill of those who bested them. I can’t say my guys were as gracious, as they were awash in the glory of the victory and a mix of pride and amazement at their accomplishment.
But they’d done more than win.
Throughout this day, not a single one of the boys understood that “imitation is a form of flattery” and that the other group was never, in fact, a threat, but was an admiring audience that fed off their energy to do something they never would have thought of on their own. Somehow my guys sensed that their need to re-build the friendship and repair the before-lunch rupture was more powerful than any other urge or need, and in that service, they transformed the other kids’ energy of admiration into the energy of in-group/out-group conflict, pulling themselves together into an indestructible “us.” The walk back to the car was filled with “Next time, we should _______________” plans so that their future efforts will be even more amazing. Four boys built – a sand city, a driftwood tower, eventually a dig site – but mostly they constructed a stronger foundation for their friendship, which now includes life-long memories of coming together to dig the biggest hole ever dug on that beach.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Reason #142 Why I Love My Husband
He tears up at the same country music lyrics that I do.
Loves lost, parents letting go, loved ones dying, or “our” song about broken roads leading us to one another – my strong, capable, masculine provider/protector holds a deep well of emotion. Over lunch today I told him about the most recent song that choked me up – he hadn’t heard it - and before I finished saying the title, he’d teared up, too.
Oh, the comfort of being in a relationship where we both feel things deeply, and are OK with that, something so elemental it has no number on a list.
Dry eye music check: Justin Moore’s, If heaven wasn’t so far away
Dry eye music dare: k.d. lang’s Hallelujah
This song creates a miraculous state of love, longing, sadness, awe and joy, all of which make you happy as the tears run down your face. We saw k.d. lang a year or two ago, opening for Lyle Lovett (there is no better musical pairing - ever), and the music coursed through both of us. His tear-streaked face when it was over is one of my favorite memories, and is embedded in the emotion evoked when I hear it now.
Justin Moore’s video is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55GAUgjpDQA
A live version of k.d. lang’s Hallelujah is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE&feature=related
Loves lost, parents letting go, loved ones dying, or “our” song about broken roads leading us to one another – my strong, capable, masculine provider/protector holds a deep well of emotion. Over lunch today I told him about the most recent song that choked me up – he hadn’t heard it - and before I finished saying the title, he’d teared up, too.
Oh, the comfort of being in a relationship where we both feel things deeply, and are OK with that, something so elemental it has no number on a list.
Dry eye music check: Justin Moore’s, If heaven wasn’t so far away
Dry eye music dare: k.d. lang’s Hallelujah
This song creates a miraculous state of love, longing, sadness, awe and joy, all of which make you happy as the tears run down your face. We saw k.d. lang a year or two ago, opening for Lyle Lovett (there is no better musical pairing - ever), and the music coursed through both of us. His tear-streaked face when it was over is one of my favorite memories, and is embedded in the emotion evoked when I hear it now.
Justin Moore’s video is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55GAUgjpDQA
A live version of k.d. lang’s Hallelujah is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE&feature=related
Friday, June 17, 2011
Shadow Boxing
I grew up doing things like a girl. I threw like a girl, ran like a girl, cried like a girl, and in my teenage years I slammed doors, waited by the phone, and pined after unrequited crushes - just like a girl. I got trained to make the bed, shovel a walk, set and clear a table, brush my teeth twice daily and many other important lessons. My parents taught me how to be organized and focused; they taught me delayed gratification (no TV until my homework was completed). And since my teenage years were in the ‘70’s, I was told I could be anything I wanted, to use education to have any career at all. I could be a doctor, a lawyer, any type of professional I wanted to be (except for ballerina, but that was my doing, really, as I lacked grace, fluidity and a thin wispy build, so quite early on I switched to tap). For all these lessons, I’m forever grateful. But something was missing, and I realized it when reading a book about how to help boys through their adolescence.
Boys, according to this source, must be trained, by men, how to experience anger and fear – how to understand and overcome and move through the blackest of emotions. It is this training, they say, that will keep boys from becoming irresponsible, bullying, womanizing, intimidating and shallow men who are afraid to commit to the arduous tasks of adult life. Traditional rites of passage, so often overlooked in our culture, were the ways this was accomplished – older, wiser men taking younger, inexperienced boys and leading them on a some version of a Vision Quest, teaching them skills and then leaving them alone in the wilderness for three days, facing danger and fear, panic and hunger, the anger at the old men and the tribe and the whole damn world for making this impossible quest – then living through all the crazy/scary/inane contents of one’s head and heart, and finding the part of oneself that continues to exist after the fear and anger and danger have ended. In the process, these boys became men, having learned how to handle powerful negative emotions and emerge stronger because of it.
As soon as I read this, it clicked. Yes, train them up. I’ve no doubt boys are desperately in need this training. But what about girls? I don’t think I know of a woman who was trained, as a teenager, in what to DO with anger or fear or insecurities or sadness that would have been effective or satisfying or in any way useful. In the absence of positive training, we just felt these feelings, over and over, and attempted all kinds of ineffective strategies. In the absence of effective training, here are some things that I learned to do with difficult feelings, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only girl on the block who attempted these:
Yet it turns out pain isn’t something to be avoided or covered up or ignored or numbed. Pain is to be used as the basis of becoming competent, agentic adults. What we girls needed was a heroine's journey. The time and space to learn about what dangers lay ahead, then the practice in meeting and overcoming these dangers.
Heroic overcoming, especially for boys-becoming-men, is what fills children’s fiction. Mythology, fairy tales and even some modern movies geared toward children provide a villain – the awful, usually ugly, seemingly über-powerful, larger-than-life witch or giant, monster or alien. I always thought that these stories were crucial to help children understand how they will somehow overcome the villains they’ll encounter in their day-to-day life. We allow our children to identify with the hero, and to push away the villain, then celebrate in the victory over the villain, who has been slain, decapitated, banished, evaporated, or at least made a fool, and thus stripped of their seeming power. When anger and fear have no release, someone becomes a villain, someone else a victim. Yet no matter which side of this teeter-totter you sit on, the game is rigged for a lifetime of dissatisfaction and self-sabotage. Wile E. Coyote never actually destroys the Road Runner, and the Road Runner never fully banishes or destroys the stalking, relentless Coyote, yet these two are yoked forever in the most unsatisfying ways. Evil is out there, these stories warn, so be prepared for an endless battle.
But now I see things differently. Great fiction has something else to tell us – the giant or witch is not some OTHER creature. The destructive, rageful, hurtful, selfish, reckless, vain, mean, detested and destestable ogre represents our shadow self. We each have a shadow, an ugly, angry, self-entitled vortex that sits atop our deepest fears and strongest rages. I imagine that it’s the purpose of the anger to keep everyone, including ourselves, far off track from our terror and fear of humiliation. Yet the fear is the root of the anger – the humiliation of feeling so small and inadequate in the face of fear turns in to endless attempts to make others afraid. The more angry and self-absorbed we become, the less others can hurt us. We’ll just hurt all by ourselves, and inflict whatever we can on the people we no longer care a whit about. In this vein, evil is inside us, so we must be prepared to encounter the Shadow within.
And thus the hero’s journey – the ability to learn the unique skill set one brings to bear in the world, and to use it to fight against, tame, and overcome the id-like inner Shadow. This is the training I needed, but it was outside the scope of what my family could provide to their children, both male and female. No one in my clan was prepared or guided on a hero’s journey of their own, so it makes sense they didn’t even know to provide this to their children. And I doubt that in the suburban ‘70’s, any of the neighbor kids were getting this either. Baby boomer parents weren’t exactly raised to be heroes; they were the children of the Great Hero generation, and instead they thought they could coast.
Power is not just in the mind, nor does it rest solely in the body. Power is the ability to use our total physiological energy – from mind, body, and positive and negative emotions – in an unending pursuit of our greater goals. No one is powerful when they are impotently or wildly enraged; no one is effective through avoiding conflict; and certainly, no one who bases action or inaction in fear can harness anything like power. As a teenager and young person, I let my Shadow self call too many of the shots, and didn’t even know I’d done so.
Here’s the training I’d like to see for teenagers: Let’s train boys and girls just like we train boxers and martial artists, to encounter not just outward dangers, but inner Shadows. Let’s develop classes where we introduce kids to their Shadows, then come face to face with their inner ogre/witch, and learn how to encounter, withstand and transform their fear and anger. And sure, there’s a masculine and feminine strength to bring to bear in this training, so boys can learn to Man Up and girls can learn to Woman Up and each learn to take useful, effective action. Let’s build a modern-day Vision Quest field trip into high school curricula (with parental consent and release of liability forms – can you imagine? – well, we should do it anyway).
I have a very different relationship with my Shadow than I ever had before. I’ve come to respect my deeper feelings of discomfort, assume they have something important to tell me either about myself or my situation. I let myself feel them, then turn a curious mind to the action they might call from me. I have been training myself over the years, stripping away the ineffective strategies, to take action – positive action – at the very time that my emotions flood and I’d previously been left to choose between helpless, isolating inaction or stupid, angry, isolating action. Without knowing it, I’ve become a Shadow Boxer – learning protective punches, jabs, straights, hooks, crosses, uppers and the oh-so-important blocks, practicing them in the air, at no one in particular, or in a mirror, at inner Demons and outer Adversaries. I’ve been learning how to move out of the path of incoming danger, through bobbing, weaving, ducking, parrying, to be light and nimble on my (emotional) feet.
I hope no one laughs when they see me at the gym these days, with 5 pound weights in each hand, throwing punches at my mirror image. I still lack the “oomph”, the snap of the throw, but I’m getting better at staying on my toes, better at being able to hold my arms upright with the addition of this small amount of extra weight. I’m my own ringside coach, cajoling more effort, more strength out of myself. I’m a suburban girl who’s come late to the ring, but I’m gonna stay in it as many rounds as I can.
Boys, according to this source, must be trained, by men, how to experience anger and fear – how to understand and overcome and move through the blackest of emotions. It is this training, they say, that will keep boys from becoming irresponsible, bullying, womanizing, intimidating and shallow men who are afraid to commit to the arduous tasks of adult life. Traditional rites of passage, so often overlooked in our culture, were the ways this was accomplished – older, wiser men taking younger, inexperienced boys and leading them on a some version of a Vision Quest, teaching them skills and then leaving them alone in the wilderness for three days, facing danger and fear, panic and hunger, the anger at the old men and the tribe and the whole damn world for making this impossible quest – then living through all the crazy/scary/inane contents of one’s head and heart, and finding the part of oneself that continues to exist after the fear and anger and danger have ended. In the process, these boys became men, having learned how to handle powerful negative emotions and emerge stronger because of it.
As soon as I read this, it clicked. Yes, train them up. I’ve no doubt boys are desperately in need this training. But what about girls? I don’t think I know of a woman who was trained, as a teenager, in what to DO with anger or fear or insecurities or sadness that would have been effective or satisfying or in any way useful. In the absence of positive training, we just felt these feelings, over and over, and attempted all kinds of ineffective strategies. In the absence of effective training, here are some things that I learned to do with difficult feelings, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only girl on the block who attempted these:
• to not feel things so deeply – aka, grow a thicker skin, not take things personally, and generally “just get over it” - problem with this: it requires denying one’s own experiences, not a great place from which to build.
• to hide painful emotion and create an outer mask of being “fine” – problem with this: it leads to isolation and further misunderstanding. If you succeed, no one knows you except for your mask; if you fail, no one can understand it because you keep denying that you’re in pain.
• to distract oneself – the problem here is that pain is now prolonged, as it’s just right there, waiting, until you come back to it.
• to blame everyone and everything for our misery in a futile attempt to make the villains “do something” to make it better, to draw them in closer to soothe us – oh, the complex problems with this, as false attempts to bring people closer only push them away. And it misses the fact that the other person probably wanted distance to begin with, or they wouldn’t have engaged in hurtful actions. So not likely to work. Ever.
• to make something out of distress, an alter of sorts – bad poems, sad movies and books, endless playbacks of songs where the music and lyrics glorified youthful alienation and loss, long tearful phone calls to friends, fights and fights and fights with parents. And probably the entire Goth decade, girls in shapeless, impenetrable black, even their eyes and lips untouchably, unkissably black. Problematic only if you think building an identity as a misunderstood, lonely, melancholy or angry person is a bad idea.
• to numb one’s pain - in my generation, girls used mostly food (overindulgence and then the emergence of starvation) and drink, but later generations have added in a more complex variety of numbing options, such as cutting, internet/Netflix, designer drugs and meaningless sex. I won’t patronize my readers to state the clear and unremitting problems in these strategies.
Yet it turns out pain isn’t something to be avoided or covered up or ignored or numbed. Pain is to be used as the basis of becoming competent, agentic adults. What we girls needed was a heroine's journey. The time and space to learn about what dangers lay ahead, then the practice in meeting and overcoming these dangers.
Heroic overcoming, especially for boys-becoming-men, is what fills children’s fiction. Mythology, fairy tales and even some modern movies geared toward children provide a villain – the awful, usually ugly, seemingly über-powerful, larger-than-life witch or giant, monster or alien. I always thought that these stories were crucial to help children understand how they will somehow overcome the villains they’ll encounter in their day-to-day life. We allow our children to identify with the hero, and to push away the villain, then celebrate in the victory over the villain, who has been slain, decapitated, banished, evaporated, or at least made a fool, and thus stripped of their seeming power. When anger and fear have no release, someone becomes a villain, someone else a victim. Yet no matter which side of this teeter-totter you sit on, the game is rigged for a lifetime of dissatisfaction and self-sabotage. Wile E. Coyote never actually destroys the Road Runner, and the Road Runner never fully banishes or destroys the stalking, relentless Coyote, yet these two are yoked forever in the most unsatisfying ways. Evil is out there, these stories warn, so be prepared for an endless battle.
But now I see things differently. Great fiction has something else to tell us – the giant or witch is not some OTHER creature. The destructive, rageful, hurtful, selfish, reckless, vain, mean, detested and destestable ogre represents our shadow self. We each have a shadow, an ugly, angry, self-entitled vortex that sits atop our deepest fears and strongest rages. I imagine that it’s the purpose of the anger to keep everyone, including ourselves, far off track from our terror and fear of humiliation. Yet the fear is the root of the anger – the humiliation of feeling so small and inadequate in the face of fear turns in to endless attempts to make others afraid. The more angry and self-absorbed we become, the less others can hurt us. We’ll just hurt all by ourselves, and inflict whatever we can on the people we no longer care a whit about. In this vein, evil is inside us, so we must be prepared to encounter the Shadow within.
And thus the hero’s journey – the ability to learn the unique skill set one brings to bear in the world, and to use it to fight against, tame, and overcome the id-like inner Shadow. This is the training I needed, but it was outside the scope of what my family could provide to their children, both male and female. No one in my clan was prepared or guided on a hero’s journey of their own, so it makes sense they didn’t even know to provide this to their children. And I doubt that in the suburban ‘70’s, any of the neighbor kids were getting this either. Baby boomer parents weren’t exactly raised to be heroes; they were the children of the Great Hero generation, and instead they thought they could coast.
Power is not just in the mind, nor does it rest solely in the body. Power is the ability to use our total physiological energy – from mind, body, and positive and negative emotions – in an unending pursuit of our greater goals. No one is powerful when they are impotently or wildly enraged; no one is effective through avoiding conflict; and certainly, no one who bases action or inaction in fear can harness anything like power. As a teenager and young person, I let my Shadow self call too many of the shots, and didn’t even know I’d done so.
Here’s the training I’d like to see for teenagers: Let’s train boys and girls just like we train boxers and martial artists, to encounter not just outward dangers, but inner Shadows. Let’s develop classes where we introduce kids to their Shadows, then come face to face with their inner ogre/witch, and learn how to encounter, withstand and transform their fear and anger. And sure, there’s a masculine and feminine strength to bring to bear in this training, so boys can learn to Man Up and girls can learn to Woman Up and each learn to take useful, effective action. Let’s build a modern-day Vision Quest field trip into high school curricula (with parental consent and release of liability forms – can you imagine? – well, we should do it anyway).
I have a very different relationship with my Shadow than I ever had before. I’ve come to respect my deeper feelings of discomfort, assume they have something important to tell me either about myself or my situation. I let myself feel them, then turn a curious mind to the action they might call from me. I have been training myself over the years, stripping away the ineffective strategies, to take action – positive action – at the very time that my emotions flood and I’d previously been left to choose between helpless, isolating inaction or stupid, angry, isolating action. Without knowing it, I’ve become a Shadow Boxer – learning protective punches, jabs, straights, hooks, crosses, uppers and the oh-so-important blocks, practicing them in the air, at no one in particular, or in a mirror, at inner Demons and outer Adversaries. I’ve been learning how to move out of the path of incoming danger, through bobbing, weaving, ducking, parrying, to be light and nimble on my (emotional) feet.
I hope no one laughs when they see me at the gym these days, with 5 pound weights in each hand, throwing punches at my mirror image. I still lack the “oomph”, the snap of the throw, but I’m getting better at staying on my toes, better at being able to hold my arms upright with the addition of this small amount of extra weight. I’m my own ringside coach, cajoling more effort, more strength out of myself. I’m a suburban girl who’s come late to the ring, but I’m gonna stay in it as many rounds as I can.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Pajama Day
Yesterday was Pajama Day at my son’s school. It was the midpoint of Spirit Week. This comes at the exact time when some families are hoping for a final academic push to solidify some of the basics that might have slipped under the radar in the year. But who can learn in the midst of summer fever? Teachers, staff, students, and even parents are completely awash in the unraveling that happens when the end is near.
Monday was crazy hair day, Tuesday was crazy hat day, then yesterday’s pajama day. Today it’s twin day (dress like another kid – my son and a friend will be wearing the exact same polo shirt, blue jeans, and the other boy will don a pair of fake glasses to match my son’s). And Friday it’s school spirit day AND field day (so the kids will basically be out running around and playing games for the entire afternoon, clad in t-shirts proclaiming their solidarity to the school).
Just days remain until these kids officially move ahead one grade, and all you have to do is put them in their jammies to see their more tender, young selves that are usually hidden behind the clothes they wear every day. Add in some slippers, a couple of sleeping caps, a few fuzzy robes, pillows and even stuffed animals, and it was a brief time travel moment (for the parents, of course, children don’t really focus on how old or young they feel at any given time). I used to have a small little child in my house, I used to have a person in the kind of footed jammies some of the younger ones were wearing. The soft, flannel jammies – flowers and plaid and Dora and Spiderman and Transformers and Disney Princess – brought out the exquisite tipping point – these children, despite homework, despite being ready for summer camps and adventures, stripped of their usual strivings to look ready-for-school, looked like the small young creatures they still are, creatures who not too long ago didn’t stray far from their sleeping nests, didn’t get up every day and prepare to encounter the large world outside their home.
My son’s class watched movies in their jammies, with pillows and stuffed animals. They were their youngest selves, giggling on mats, sharing popcorn, lying down and whispering amongst themselves, sharing the jokes and adding their own to the soundtrack. At the scheduled time, they grew themselves up to run around on the playground and to attend P.E., where they practiced archery with compound bows.
They moved seamlessly through their ages, their young needs and strivings shifting to their current ages. Not all of this was positive – there were a few turf wars that didn’t end up in the usual 4th grade compromise – a couple of kids hogged the mats and wouldn’t give them up. The lack of usual structure to the day - and the week - took its toll by dinnertime, at our house and I imagine around town. Just try getting your kids to do homework, or to sit down and eat a good dinner, after a double feature of Ghost Busters and Ghost Busters II, a belly full of popcorn and popsicles, and the disjointed sense that they just spent an entire day in their outside world clad in their soft, safe, snuggle-inviting, inside-world jammies.
Learning be damned, these kids are being trained for Rush Week.
Monday was crazy hair day, Tuesday was crazy hat day, then yesterday’s pajama day. Today it’s twin day (dress like another kid – my son and a friend will be wearing the exact same polo shirt, blue jeans, and the other boy will don a pair of fake glasses to match my son’s). And Friday it’s school spirit day AND field day (so the kids will basically be out running around and playing games for the entire afternoon, clad in t-shirts proclaiming their solidarity to the school).
Just days remain until these kids officially move ahead one grade, and all you have to do is put them in their jammies to see their more tender, young selves that are usually hidden behind the clothes they wear every day. Add in some slippers, a couple of sleeping caps, a few fuzzy robes, pillows and even stuffed animals, and it was a brief time travel moment (for the parents, of course, children don’t really focus on how old or young they feel at any given time). I used to have a small little child in my house, I used to have a person in the kind of footed jammies some of the younger ones were wearing. The soft, flannel jammies – flowers and plaid and Dora and Spiderman and Transformers and Disney Princess – brought out the exquisite tipping point – these children, despite homework, despite being ready for summer camps and adventures, stripped of their usual strivings to look ready-for-school, looked like the small young creatures they still are, creatures who not too long ago didn’t stray far from their sleeping nests, didn’t get up every day and prepare to encounter the large world outside their home.
My son’s class watched movies in their jammies, with pillows and stuffed animals. They were their youngest selves, giggling on mats, sharing popcorn, lying down and whispering amongst themselves, sharing the jokes and adding their own to the soundtrack. At the scheduled time, they grew themselves up to run around on the playground and to attend P.E., where they practiced archery with compound bows.
They moved seamlessly through their ages, their young needs and strivings shifting to their current ages. Not all of this was positive – there were a few turf wars that didn’t end up in the usual 4th grade compromise – a couple of kids hogged the mats and wouldn’t give them up. The lack of usual structure to the day - and the week - took its toll by dinnertime, at our house and I imagine around town. Just try getting your kids to do homework, or to sit down and eat a good dinner, after a double feature of Ghost Busters and Ghost Busters II, a belly full of popcorn and popsicles, and the disjointed sense that they just spent an entire day in their outside world clad in their soft, safe, snuggle-inviting, inside-world jammies.
Learning be damned, these kids are being trained for Rush Week.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sitting Behind Christie Brinkley at the Ballet
Disclaimer 1: It wasn’t really Christie Brinkley, with or without Billy Joel. The real Christie Brinkley is nearing 60, and wouldn’t have been in my local opera house in row 8 with a 12-year old young girl as a companion. She’d be in a New York or Los Angeles opera house, on opening night, with an entourage, a box seat, and whatever else American Goddesses are granted when they wish to see Giselle.
Disclaimer 2: It was my husband who was sitting directly behind this impossibly tall, impossibly blond vixen, not me. I got the semi-profile view and back view. It was my husband’s knee that one long, silken flaxen tendril of hair cascaded on to, not mine.
So here’s what happened. We were in row 9, in our dress-up finery, just having finished a high-end dinner out. We’re reading through the program, about all the new staging and choreography and mime based on uncovering initial notes from performances in the 1800’s. I’m feeling sophisticated and beautiful. My husband is looking handsome and contented. It’s a lovely twilight-like moment before the lights will dim and the orchestra will begin, an in-between space of awaiting something fine just behind the curtain’s horizon.
Then a woman and a young girl are seated in the row in front of us. “Christie” was six feet tall, wearing a strapless, skin-tight, gathered, belted, sand-colored dress that covered her ample breasts and even more rounded bottom, but not a millimeter more. Her long blond hair was a symphony of shine, light and lighter shades, silky, smooth, and falling down her backless back, over the back of her seat. An aura of willing sexuality was vibrating, pulsating, around her.
She wasn’t wispy-thin or pale, nor did she have a tall-girl’s shoulder stoop; she stood and sat to her full regal height. I wouldn’t have been able to see the stage over her head, but my husband is tall enough. Giselle on stage, Christie’s hair flowing over the seat in front of him. Even if Christie had obstructed his view, he wouldn’t have wanted to change seats – wouldn’t have interfered with his great good fortune to sit behind this kind of Penthouse beauty. And the memory she evoked of the beautiful blonds of his past. My husband, it turns out, has always been attracted to blond women. I’m his only brunette.
This woman was full-bodied and beautiful. Her legs were long, her thighs were generous. Her bottom was round and big. She was perhaps 5 or 10 pounds heavier than she needed to be, but 5 or 10 pounds on a 6-foot frame is really nothing, and it’s more likely that I envied her ability to have this largeness and still be compellingly seductive. Finding fault with her body is something only another woman would do, as I’ve no doubt there’s not a man on the planet, straight or gay, who’d find a single ounce to complain about. They’d just thank whatever deity they usually thank that makes creatures of magnificence and revel in whatever moments they were granted in her company.
Only later, after the lights went out and the performance began, did I notice that Christie wore one tiny braid – with a feather - and several large silver rings. She was so much younger than I’d initially thought – her full-bodied sensuality throwing me off the trail. The braid and feather soothed me, a bit, suggested that my sense of competition was misplaced. There’s such absurdity in my reaction, yet what middle-aged woman doesn’t realize that even in her moments of beauty, she will forever be surpassed by splendor far taller/younger/sexier than she could ever be?
It’s possible that this woman stole more attention from me than from my husband. It’s only after I saw her in the gift shop with her young companion – her younger sister perhaps? – that I fully realized her youth, and I was able to let go of my irrational thoughts about what her presence could do to my husband: whether my married life was in jeopardy because he’d realize he really didn’t want a 5 foot 4 inch brunette in her late forties when there were women like this so close all he has to do is reach his hand down to his knee and twirl her golden lock.
After the ballet, we managed to walk behind this woman all the way through the long corridors and lobby, out to the street. Walk behind her high-heeled sashay. We spent almost three hours seeing this woman from behind. And then she was gone, back to her life.
It’s the next morning, and I’m still happily married. My husband doesn’t want anyone other than me, and when he gives thanks to his version of a deity, I think I’m the one he’s thankful for. Not that he won’t enjoy the fantasy of big-breasted blonds who appear out of nowhere just to grace his day. If Jimmy Smits or Denzel Washington had sat down in front of us, I sure hope my husband would forgive me the fantasy-in-the-dark of what a night/life would be like to revel in their magnificence. Because I’m pretty sure I’d go there.
Disclaimer 2: It was my husband who was sitting directly behind this impossibly tall, impossibly blond vixen, not me. I got the semi-profile view and back view. It was my husband’s knee that one long, silken flaxen tendril of hair cascaded on to, not mine.
So here’s what happened. We were in row 9, in our dress-up finery, just having finished a high-end dinner out. We’re reading through the program, about all the new staging and choreography and mime based on uncovering initial notes from performances in the 1800’s. I’m feeling sophisticated and beautiful. My husband is looking handsome and contented. It’s a lovely twilight-like moment before the lights will dim and the orchestra will begin, an in-between space of awaiting something fine just behind the curtain’s horizon.
Then a woman and a young girl are seated in the row in front of us. “Christie” was six feet tall, wearing a strapless, skin-tight, gathered, belted, sand-colored dress that covered her ample breasts and even more rounded bottom, but not a millimeter more. Her long blond hair was a symphony of shine, light and lighter shades, silky, smooth, and falling down her backless back, over the back of her seat. An aura of willing sexuality was vibrating, pulsating, around her.
She wasn’t wispy-thin or pale, nor did she have a tall-girl’s shoulder stoop; she stood and sat to her full regal height. I wouldn’t have been able to see the stage over her head, but my husband is tall enough. Giselle on stage, Christie’s hair flowing over the seat in front of him. Even if Christie had obstructed his view, he wouldn’t have wanted to change seats – wouldn’t have interfered with his great good fortune to sit behind this kind of Penthouse beauty. And the memory she evoked of the beautiful blonds of his past. My husband, it turns out, has always been attracted to blond women. I’m his only brunette.
This woman was full-bodied and beautiful. Her legs were long, her thighs were generous. Her bottom was round and big. She was perhaps 5 or 10 pounds heavier than she needed to be, but 5 or 10 pounds on a 6-foot frame is really nothing, and it’s more likely that I envied her ability to have this largeness and still be compellingly seductive. Finding fault with her body is something only another woman would do, as I’ve no doubt there’s not a man on the planet, straight or gay, who’d find a single ounce to complain about. They’d just thank whatever deity they usually thank that makes creatures of magnificence and revel in whatever moments they were granted in her company.
Only later, after the lights went out and the performance began, did I notice that Christie wore one tiny braid – with a feather - and several large silver rings. She was so much younger than I’d initially thought – her full-bodied sensuality throwing me off the trail. The braid and feather soothed me, a bit, suggested that my sense of competition was misplaced. There’s such absurdity in my reaction, yet what middle-aged woman doesn’t realize that even in her moments of beauty, she will forever be surpassed by splendor far taller/younger/sexier than she could ever be?
It’s possible that this woman stole more attention from me than from my husband. It’s only after I saw her in the gift shop with her young companion – her younger sister perhaps? – that I fully realized her youth, and I was able to let go of my irrational thoughts about what her presence could do to my husband: whether my married life was in jeopardy because he’d realize he really didn’t want a 5 foot 4 inch brunette in her late forties when there were women like this so close all he has to do is reach his hand down to his knee and twirl her golden lock.
After the ballet, we managed to walk behind this woman all the way through the long corridors and lobby, out to the street. Walk behind her high-heeled sashay. We spent almost three hours seeing this woman from behind. And then she was gone, back to her life.
It’s the next morning, and I’m still happily married. My husband doesn’t want anyone other than me, and when he gives thanks to his version of a deity, I think I’m the one he’s thankful for. Not that he won’t enjoy the fantasy of big-breasted blonds who appear out of nowhere just to grace his day. If Jimmy Smits or Denzel Washington had sat down in front of us, I sure hope my husband would forgive me the fantasy-in-the-dark of what a night/life would be like to revel in their magnificence. Because I’m pretty sure I’d go there.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Musical Interlude
A while back, I attended a house concert that proved to be an unexpected delight. The evening was a perfect combination of youth, beauty, music, a glass of unexceptional red wine (as far as I can tell, large pot-luck events seem to yield an abundance of unexceptional wines, and the one I contributed was no better. Perhaps no one wants to bring a truly superior wine, only to offer it amidst all the lesser vintages) and my exceptional husband (willing to accompany me on yet another request to try something new, even though he’s not much of a folk music fan so he was clearly only there as a gift to me).
A young female singer/songwriter duo contributed the youth, beauty and music. Two milky-skinned women, with no make-up, casual clothes, forgotten hair, but with big doe eyes that shone with intelligence, and the burgeoning soul of the folk singers. They were so young and innocent and open that they seemed to be playing an evening-long game of charades, having picked the card saying, “Folk Musicians.” They chatted awkwardly in between their songs. The guitar player looked like an orphan/waif - dressed down in a drab brown plaid skirt that flared at her ankles, holding a guitar that almost dwarfed her body, making her appear even younger and smaller. For other songs, she played and picked an old Banjo. At some point in the set she informed us that her acoustic guitar was a '57 Vintage Gibson LG2 that she restored to playing condition. And when she switched to an electric guitar, she became full grown, throwing off the deceit of the plaid-skirt dowdy girl playing grown-up, and revealing an inner feminine power and playfulness. One of the last things the women told the audience was that they took their band name from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. They may look fresh and milky and new, but they are clearly a literate, creative, talented duo.
The music was melodic and graceful, the lyrics were meaningful (as much as 20-something creamy-skinned young Rocky Mountain region women can breathe into their art while wrapped in the arms of youth, and, no matter what perils life has offered so far, haven’t lived through and been changed by the lifetime that lies ahead for each of them). Each song was lovely, and my husband enjoyed the music far more than he’d anticipated. My husband and I were so much older than the musicians, yet younger than most of the audience members, so it was an odd parallel – to me, the musicians were like the young fresh college kids I’ve taught over the years, and I was the old, wise crone smiling benevolently throughout their performance. But I felt like a young, inexperienced girl in conversation with the 60- and 70-year old attendees. I’m sure I reminded them of a more youthful time in their lives, and basked in their benevolent, indulgent smile as we conversed.
I was unjustifiably proud of these two young women – as if their success somehow was a reflection on me, and the way I’ve led my life. I felt more youthful optimism and buoyant hope in the next generation. These are not the typical cynical, disheartened, unmotivated, responsibility-avoidant Gen-Xers. They are living their lives, taking risks, creating music, competing on the national scene for recognition. These are powerful women using thrift-store attire to obscure the trail of their intelligence and thirst for success. I know some 20-something women who haven’t yet hit their stride, haven’t given themselves permission to live their full potential. Instead, they hold themselves back, eschewing challenges, hoarding safety and escapism, thus preventing success or growth, and reinforcing their desire to avoid the (scary/challenging) world.
And who knows, maybe there is something that these two women are riding on, that has come from the inroads of women who came before them. Not me in particular, of course, but my generation of women who are high achievers and have chosen family and career and creativity and spirituality and community and we still make home-made meals for our kids and read to them and truthfully, we’re quite tired by the end of the day, but look what we’ve produced: a generation that includes women like these two – pursuing dreams and talent and feeling strong enough about themselves to put whatever clothes they want over their smooth-skinned youth.
I tracked down the Longfellow poem that inspired this band. I’ve read it several times, cheated by looking up possible meanings, then returned and read it several more times. What I’ve come to appreciate is the poet’s use image of light and warmth - from a fire made of shipwrecked wood - to describe the feeling of friendships moving apart over time; the way warmth can remain even when the substance has gone.
Much depth for women so early in their paths. Perhaps they wonder what will become of their musical union as time continues to press on. I’ve had at least 20+ years more of life than these young musicians, and have come to realize that no one knows which friendships, alliances, or soul mates will last, and which will break apart. Which relationships, when over, still bring warmth and an inner glow, and which, instead, bring a chill and an unfillable emptiness.
A young female singer/songwriter duo contributed the youth, beauty and music. Two milky-skinned women, with no make-up, casual clothes, forgotten hair, but with big doe eyes that shone with intelligence, and the burgeoning soul of the folk singers. They were so young and innocent and open that they seemed to be playing an evening-long game of charades, having picked the card saying, “Folk Musicians.” They chatted awkwardly in between their songs. The guitar player looked like an orphan/waif - dressed down in a drab brown plaid skirt that flared at her ankles, holding a guitar that almost dwarfed her body, making her appear even younger and smaller. For other songs, she played and picked an old Banjo. At some point in the set she informed us that her acoustic guitar was a '57 Vintage Gibson LG2 that she restored to playing condition. And when she switched to an electric guitar, she became full grown, throwing off the deceit of the plaid-skirt dowdy girl playing grown-up, and revealing an inner feminine power and playfulness. One of the last things the women told the audience was that they took their band name from a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. They may look fresh and milky and new, but they are clearly a literate, creative, talented duo.
The music was melodic and graceful, the lyrics were meaningful (as much as 20-something creamy-skinned young Rocky Mountain region women can breathe into their art while wrapped in the arms of youth, and, no matter what perils life has offered so far, haven’t lived through and been changed by the lifetime that lies ahead for each of them). Each song was lovely, and my husband enjoyed the music far more than he’d anticipated. My husband and I were so much older than the musicians, yet younger than most of the audience members, so it was an odd parallel – to me, the musicians were like the young fresh college kids I’ve taught over the years, and I was the old, wise crone smiling benevolently throughout their performance. But I felt like a young, inexperienced girl in conversation with the 60- and 70-year old attendees. I’m sure I reminded them of a more youthful time in their lives, and basked in their benevolent, indulgent smile as we conversed.
I was unjustifiably proud of these two young women – as if their success somehow was a reflection on me, and the way I’ve led my life. I felt more youthful optimism and buoyant hope in the next generation. These are not the typical cynical, disheartened, unmotivated, responsibility-avoidant Gen-Xers. They are living their lives, taking risks, creating music, competing on the national scene for recognition. These are powerful women using thrift-store attire to obscure the trail of their intelligence and thirst for success. I know some 20-something women who haven’t yet hit their stride, haven’t given themselves permission to live their full potential. Instead, they hold themselves back, eschewing challenges, hoarding safety and escapism, thus preventing success or growth, and reinforcing their desire to avoid the (scary/challenging) world.
And who knows, maybe there is something that these two women are riding on, that has come from the inroads of women who came before them. Not me in particular, of course, but my generation of women who are high achievers and have chosen family and career and creativity and spirituality and community and we still make home-made meals for our kids and read to them and truthfully, we’re quite tired by the end of the day, but look what we’ve produced: a generation that includes women like these two – pursuing dreams and talent and feeling strong enough about themselves to put whatever clothes they want over their smooth-skinned youth.
I tracked down the Longfellow poem that inspired this band. I’ve read it several times, cheated by looking up possible meanings, then returned and read it several more times. What I’ve come to appreciate is the poet’s use image of light and warmth - from a fire made of shipwrecked wood - to describe the feeling of friendships moving apart over time; the way warmth can remain even when the substance has gone.
Much depth for women so early in their paths. Perhaps they wonder what will become of their musical union as time continues to press on. I’ve had at least 20+ years more of life than these young musicians, and have come to realize that no one knows which friendships, alliances, or soul mates will last, and which will break apart. Which relationships, when over, still bring warmth and an inner glow, and which, instead, bring a chill and an unfillable emptiness.
The Fire of Drift-wood
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD.
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
Published in Longfellow’s (1849) The Seaside and the Fireside.
Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173898
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD.
We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;
The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.
And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.
The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
Published in Longfellow’s (1849) The Seaside and the Fireside.
Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173898
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Double Digits
My son is now 10, and inching closer to his “tweens” – a word that didn’t exist to describe my own years between childhood and adolescence. Does that mean I didn’t experience my own tweens or simply that no one recognized the unique development conflicts in the years of burgeoning independence and dependency?
If I believe the tween buzz, my son is at the beginning of the end of our closeness. Boys pull away from their mothers. Boys rebel against their mothers. Boys stop talking. Boys shut down from their mothers, hide their growing sense of self, sensuality, sexuality, and male power from their mothers, who are frightened of it and want to "tame" it, turning it into something they’re familiar with. The sphere of maternal influence is not only diminishing, but it hampers a boy's development in the world of men.
Well, we’re 10-days into 10, and this morning he woke up like he has done for the last 10 X 365 mornings of his life (minus sleepovers and such) where he preconsciously seeks me out and begins his pre-awakening with a big hug. We whispered about him still being sleepy (“schluffy,” as I call it), and that as soon as I was done with an email I’d come out and sit with him. He held on just a touch longer than usual, and I murmured into his neck, “Lucky, lucky Mom.” “Lucky, lucky Kid” was his response.
Day 10, and he can still be him - a growing boy - without shutting down or shutting me out. And I can still be me without needing him to be anything other than a boy straddling two worlds. I’ll be the one who stays in his inner home, and he’s free to come and go.
Lucky, lucky us.
If I believe the tween buzz, my son is at the beginning of the end of our closeness. Boys pull away from their mothers. Boys rebel against their mothers. Boys stop talking. Boys shut down from their mothers, hide their growing sense of self, sensuality, sexuality, and male power from their mothers, who are frightened of it and want to "tame" it, turning it into something they’re familiar with. The sphere of maternal influence is not only diminishing, but it hampers a boy's development in the world of men.
Well, we’re 10-days into 10, and this morning he woke up like he has done for the last 10 X 365 mornings of his life (minus sleepovers and such) where he preconsciously seeks me out and begins his pre-awakening with a big hug. We whispered about him still being sleepy (“schluffy,” as I call it), and that as soon as I was done with an email I’d come out and sit with him. He held on just a touch longer than usual, and I murmured into his neck, “Lucky, lucky Mom.” “Lucky, lucky Kid” was his response.
Day 10, and he can still be him - a growing boy - without shutting down or shutting me out. And I can still be me without needing him to be anything other than a boy straddling two worlds. I’ll be the one who stays in his inner home, and he’s free to come and go.
Lucky, lucky us.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Time Off
It’s amazing how difficult it is for me to do nothing. Lay on a chaise lounge for hours in the sun. Sit looking out over the water. Who are the people who are so relaxed that they fall asleep at the beach? For that matter, people who fall asleep any time after they’ve been up?
I had the day off from work yesterday. So of course I’d scheduled a doctor’s appointment that morning. After verifying my good health, I slipped in a few errands (the bank, the grocery store, the library to return a book) before heading to my son’s school for volunteer duty. It was my day to relieve the teacher from the loathsome task of grading math assessments.
Then, six hours stretched ahead. Six hours with nothing scheduled, so I could do anything I wanted. Six hours is an eternity for a person whose mind might slow down but then is only at warp speed. I think I’m wired like a short-haired small dog – mostly “on” and with more movement than is necessary. When I have to attend day-long seminars, I have to bring several books, crossword puzzles, paper and pencil for writing/doodling/drawing, and an assortment of non-crunchy, non-obtrusive snacks to keep myself entertained for the six hours of dense course content. I don’t have ADD, I’m not hyper or manic, or any of the things that these days we use pharmaceuticals to squash. I can focus intently for long periods of time. I just can’t focus on nothing for long – or short – periods of time. I am, as you might imagine, able to get a lot done.
So how would I spend those hours?
I could “relax” – whatever that means.
I could spend 3 hours watching The Mists of Avalon on DVD, relishing Anjelica Houston as the ultimate Girl Power channeler and seeing Julianna Margulies, who felt like an old college friend from her ER days as Nurse Carol Hathaway, transform into the next Lady of the Lake.
I could continue making my way through the book-club book that wasn’t yet at the half way mark.
I could write, as I rarely have stretches of time this large to give to myself.
I could do laundry, straighten the house, do any manner of chore.
I could buy shoes, as I’ve been wearing my favorite sandals for so long that they’ve been re-soled twice and the inside of their soles has been irreparably dilapidated for over two years, but I couldn’t bear to swap them out.
I’d already been to the gym before breakfast, so no need to work out.
I could get out in the sun – no, make that should get out in the sun - as this was the most glorious day we’d had since last August, and no telling when an opportunity like this would return.
So here’s how I spent the six hours:
I got down to my skivvies, put some carrots in a little dish (one of the snacks I almost never grab for myself), grabbed a towel, the book-club book, and my middle-aged prescription bifocal sunglasses, and out I popped out to our back patio. I read. The sun was warm, welcoming, the sensations reminding me of all the time I’ve spent in the sun. It was like going to a reunion, but the sun and my white skin were the only ones who came. It was so warm I was surprised to be sweating. I read some more, then got distracted by thoughts of having to hydrate myself.
About 20 minutes later, I needed to cool down a bit, and I decided to go inside. I flipped through a couple of cable channels, found Giada preparing an orange and pineapple beef tenderloin, and in honor of my friends who can’t bear to put pineapple in food, switched it off. I started The Mists of Avalon. After 26 minutes, I decided I needed to get out a bit – it was still sunny, after all, and it felt somewhat like a betrayal (of whom, I don’t know) to be indoors watching the a marathon King Arthur movie. But I didn’t want to read. So I drove to Staples to make some copies and get some office supplies. I was able to go slowly through the aisles to ogle cool pencils, envelopes, journals, gadgets, and calendars while my copies were being made. I stopped at a great kitchen store on my way home, to check out 12” fry pans, since my husband threw out our old, slightly warped, non-stick that had clearly seen it’s day at least a year or two ago. No pans (too expensive), but an outrageously affordable Côtes du Rhône from the “declassified” section of a father-son vineyard that otherwise creates Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I returned home, stripped back down to my skivvies, and read some more in the sun.
When I could no longer contain the niggling worry of being mostly unclad under the midday sun, not a single digit of SPF anywhere but my nose, back in I came. I had some lunch, and returned to Avalon, just when Arthur and Morgaine are separated from their parents and each other. I watched some more, spoke with some friends on the phone, then received a call from the local bookstore that my son’s book had come in. I stopped the movie again, got dressed, and headed out to get the book. I popped across the street and browsed in an over-priced boutique with some lovely clothes that I don’t think I could ever wear (when did seams come back on the outside of clothes?). I came home, and started to prepare dinner. I sat down and returned to the movie. And blissfully got to the scene where Arthur asks Lancelot to impregnate the childless Gwenwyfar (neither of these three pawns realize that Morgause has cursed Gwenwyfar to barrenness) and to be with them as they consummate this grand deed of sacrifice for Britain. But the reader/viewer knows that this coupling has no chance of leading to pregnancy, thus it’s just a gratuitous carnal threesome, with two handsome, powerful men joining together to pleasure one woman. As Ina Garten would say, “What’s not to like about that?” (And yes, I just used a Food Network reference about a sexual fantasy.)
Low and behold, the six hours passed. I didn’t do a single household chore, which I consider a victory for preserving the meaning and intent of “time off.” I was my kind of relaxed. The combination of reading, watching a movie, sitting in the sun, and having the time to browse slowly through an office supply store, a kitchen store and a boutique, was just about the right amount of slow-down, even if it might have looked a bit disjointed to someone else to see me pop up from one quiet activity to drive off to another. It preceded a perfectly slowed-down evening - a glass of the lovely wine with a surprisingly tasty dinner (lamb-sausage burgers, sautéed with onions and peppers), and then a quiet night at home.
Not exactly like lying on a chaise lounge for 6 hours immobile, only to turn over every 20 minutes like a rotisserie chicken. But I’m not a good rotisserie chicken, apparently – and I saved all my writing for today, when I’ve got far less uninterrupted time. Go figure.
I had the day off from work yesterday. So of course I’d scheduled a doctor’s appointment that morning. After verifying my good health, I slipped in a few errands (the bank, the grocery store, the library to return a book) before heading to my son’s school for volunteer duty. It was my day to relieve the teacher from the loathsome task of grading math assessments.
Then, six hours stretched ahead. Six hours with nothing scheduled, so I could do anything I wanted. Six hours is an eternity for a person whose mind might slow down but then is only at warp speed. I think I’m wired like a short-haired small dog – mostly “on” and with more movement than is necessary. When I have to attend day-long seminars, I have to bring several books, crossword puzzles, paper and pencil for writing/doodling/drawing, and an assortment of non-crunchy, non-obtrusive snacks to keep myself entertained for the six hours of dense course content. I don’t have ADD, I’m not hyper or manic, or any of the things that these days we use pharmaceuticals to squash. I can focus intently for long periods of time. I just can’t focus on nothing for long – or short – periods of time. I am, as you might imagine, able to get a lot done.
So how would I spend those hours?
I could “relax” – whatever that means.
I could spend 3 hours watching The Mists of Avalon on DVD, relishing Anjelica Houston as the ultimate Girl Power channeler and seeing Julianna Margulies, who felt like an old college friend from her ER days as Nurse Carol Hathaway, transform into the next Lady of the Lake.
I could continue making my way through the book-club book that wasn’t yet at the half way mark.
I could write, as I rarely have stretches of time this large to give to myself.
I could do laundry, straighten the house, do any manner of chore.
I could buy shoes, as I’ve been wearing my favorite sandals for so long that they’ve been re-soled twice and the inside of their soles has been irreparably dilapidated for over two years, but I couldn’t bear to swap them out.
I’d already been to the gym before breakfast, so no need to work out.
I could get out in the sun – no, make that should get out in the sun - as this was the most glorious day we’d had since last August, and no telling when an opportunity like this would return.
So here’s how I spent the six hours:
I got down to my skivvies, put some carrots in a little dish (one of the snacks I almost never grab for myself), grabbed a towel, the book-club book, and my middle-aged prescription bifocal sunglasses, and out I popped out to our back patio. I read. The sun was warm, welcoming, the sensations reminding me of all the time I’ve spent in the sun. It was like going to a reunion, but the sun and my white skin were the only ones who came. It was so warm I was surprised to be sweating. I read some more, then got distracted by thoughts of having to hydrate myself.
About 20 minutes later, I needed to cool down a bit, and I decided to go inside. I flipped through a couple of cable channels, found Giada preparing an orange and pineapple beef tenderloin, and in honor of my friends who can’t bear to put pineapple in food, switched it off. I started The Mists of Avalon. After 26 minutes, I decided I needed to get out a bit – it was still sunny, after all, and it felt somewhat like a betrayal (of whom, I don’t know) to be indoors watching the a marathon King Arthur movie. But I didn’t want to read. So I drove to Staples to make some copies and get some office supplies. I was able to go slowly through the aisles to ogle cool pencils, envelopes, journals, gadgets, and calendars while my copies were being made. I stopped at a great kitchen store on my way home, to check out 12” fry pans, since my husband threw out our old, slightly warped, non-stick that had clearly seen it’s day at least a year or two ago. No pans (too expensive), but an outrageously affordable Côtes du Rhône from the “declassified” section of a father-son vineyard that otherwise creates Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I returned home, stripped back down to my skivvies, and read some more in the sun.
When I could no longer contain the niggling worry of being mostly unclad under the midday sun, not a single digit of SPF anywhere but my nose, back in I came. I had some lunch, and returned to Avalon, just when Arthur and Morgaine are separated from their parents and each other. I watched some more, spoke with some friends on the phone, then received a call from the local bookstore that my son’s book had come in. I stopped the movie again, got dressed, and headed out to get the book. I popped across the street and browsed in an over-priced boutique with some lovely clothes that I don’t think I could ever wear (when did seams come back on the outside of clothes?). I came home, and started to prepare dinner. I sat down and returned to the movie. And blissfully got to the scene where Arthur asks Lancelot to impregnate the childless Gwenwyfar (neither of these three pawns realize that Morgause has cursed Gwenwyfar to barrenness) and to be with them as they consummate this grand deed of sacrifice for Britain. But the reader/viewer knows that this coupling has no chance of leading to pregnancy, thus it’s just a gratuitous carnal threesome, with two handsome, powerful men joining together to pleasure one woman. As Ina Garten would say, “What’s not to like about that?” (And yes, I just used a Food Network reference about a sexual fantasy.)
Low and behold, the six hours passed. I didn’t do a single household chore, which I consider a victory for preserving the meaning and intent of “time off.” I was my kind of relaxed. The combination of reading, watching a movie, sitting in the sun, and having the time to browse slowly through an office supply store, a kitchen store and a boutique, was just about the right amount of slow-down, even if it might have looked a bit disjointed to someone else to see me pop up from one quiet activity to drive off to another. It preceded a perfectly slowed-down evening - a glass of the lovely wine with a surprisingly tasty dinner (lamb-sausage burgers, sautéed with onions and peppers), and then a quiet night at home.
Not exactly like lying on a chaise lounge for 6 hours immobile, only to turn over every 20 minutes like a rotisserie chicken. But I’m not a good rotisserie chicken, apparently – and I saved all my writing for today, when I’ve got far less uninterrupted time. Go figure.
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